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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



THE LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS, FRIEND 

OF THE SMALL COLLEGE AND 

OF MISSIONS 




Dr. I). K. Pearsons 



THE LIFE OF DR. D. K. 
PEARSONS, FRIEND OF 
THE SMALL COLLEGE 
AND OF MISSIONS : : : : 



BY 

EDWARD F. WILLIAMS 




THE PILGRIM PRESS 

NEW YORK BOSTON CHICAGO 



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■T45 k/5" 



Copyright, 1911 
EDWARD F. WILLIAMS 



THE RUMFORD 


PRESS 


CONCORD 


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©CLA303548 







To 
MRS. MARIETTA CHAPIN PEARSONS 

WIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS, HELPER IN THE ACQUISITION OF HIS 
FORTUNE, SYMPATHIZER WITH HIM IN ITS DISTRIBUTION, A LOVING 
COMPANION AND A WISE COUNCILLOR FOR NEARLY SIXTY YEARS, THIS 
ACCOUNT OF THE LIFE AND WORK OF HER HUSBAND IS DEDICATED 



PREFACE 

THIS book has been written to stimulate and 
encourage those into whose hands wealth 
has come, to make, while yet alive such dis- 
tribution of it as they would wish others to make of 
it after their decease. The story of what Dr. 
Pearsons has done is full of stimulus and hope for 
ambitious young men, even if born poor. It bears 
testimony to the value of principle, earnest purpose, 
and devotion to a single object while that object is 
pursued. It shows what a change in public senti- 
ment, gifts wisely made and scattered over a series 
of years, can produce in reference to such institutions 
of learning as our small colleges. If the State Uni- 
versities and the marvellous work they have done, 
owe their existence to the Morrill Act, the sugges- 
tion of a Vermont man, the small colleges and the 
thousands of young people who attend them owe 
the work they are doing and the regard in which 
they are held to the gifts of another Vermont man, 
the man whose life and deeds it is the purpose of this 
book to relate. 

It should be said that the responsibility for the 
appearance of the book rests wholly upon its author 
and not all upon Dr. Pearsons, who has not even 
suggested that any record of what he has done for 
higher education be made public. 



vu 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I. Birth, Ancestry, Education, Early 
Life. Professional Life in Chicopee, 

Mass 3 

II. Preparation for Life in Chicago . . 15 

III. Chicago in 1860 and After . . 27 

IV. Business Life in Chicago .... 37 
V. Business Life in Chicago — continued 49 

VI. Beginning of a Great Benevolent 
Career. Gifts to Chicago Institu- 
tions. Decision to Aid Colleges . 67 
VII. Condition of the Denominational Col- 
leges When Dr. Pearsons Made His 
First Gifts to Them. Principles 
Upon Which These Gifts Have Been 

Made 89 

VIII. Gifts to Illinois Institutions . . 101 

IX. Gifts for Institutions East of Chicago 115 
X. Gifts to Beloit College .... 131 
XI. Gifts to Other Western Colleges Than 

Beloit 145 

XII. Aid for Berea College 167 

XIII. Aid for Other Southern Colleges Than 

Berea 183 

XIV. Aid for Colleges on the Pacific Coast 199 
XV. Gifts to Missions and Missionary Col- 
leges 223 

ix 



x CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

XVI. Appreciative Words 239 

XVII. Retrospect 255 

Index 273 

Appendices 

I. An Address by Dr. Pearsons at Battle Creek 

or a Lesson in Practical Philanthropy . 281 

II. Address to the Public on the Ninety-first 

Anniversary of his Birth, announcing the 
end of his career as a Philanthropist . 294 
III. Minute written by Dr. Simeon Gilbert, for- 
mer editor of The Advance, and adopted 
by the Congregational Club in recogni- 
tion of the Ninety-first Birthday of Dr. 
Pearsons 304 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

FACING 
PAGE 

Dr. D. K. Pearsons .... Frontispiece 

The Home at Hinsdale 56 * 

Mrs. D. K. Pearsons 193 ^ 

Dr. D. K. Pearsons at Ninety 262 



BIRTH, ANCESTRY, EDUCATION, EARLY LIFE 
PROFESSIONAL LIFE IN CHICOPEE, MASS. 



LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS 



BIRTH, ANCESTRY, EDUCATION, EARLY LIFE 
PROFESSIONAL LIFE IN CHICOPEE, MASS. 

DANIEL KIMBALL PEARSONS was born 
April 14, 1820, on a farm two and one half 
miles distant from the center of the town of 
Bradford, Vermont. There were seven children in 
the family, six sons and one daughter. Two of the 
sons, Charles and Arthur, died in infancy. The 
daughter, Elizabeth, the youngest of the family, 
married Dr. A. M. Cushing of Springfield, Massa- 
chusetts, where she died June 17, 1880, leaving two 
sons, one of whom is a lawyer in New York City, 
and the other principal of the New Haven (Conn.) 
High School. John Alonzo, the eldest son, was the 
first settler in Evanston, Illinois. In 1854, the year 
of his arrival at Evanston, there was but one house 
on the more than three hundred acres of land which 
the newly organized university had purchased. 
This house Mr. Pearsons and his wife occupied. For 
several years he ran an express wagon between the 
suburban village and the city of Chicago; later he 
engaged in the lumber business. His house was 



LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS 

headquarters for Methodist ministers and for every- 
thing that pertained to the interests of Methodism 
in Evanston. Throughout life he and Mrs. Pearsons 
took a deep interest in the welfare of their Church 
and University. One of the Ladies' Halls is known 
as the Mrs. John A. Pearsons Hall. Mr. Pearsons 
died January 25, 1902, honored and loved by all 
who knew him. William Baron Chapin, the third 
son, was born at Fairlee, Vermont, in 1814. He died 
at Holyoke, Massachusetts, in 1897. He was edu- 
cated in the common schools and academies of his 
native state, but studied law in the Harvard Law 
School, graduating in 1849. He settled very soon 
thereafter in Holyoke, Massachusetts, making, as 
he used to say, the thirteenth lawyer seeking a living 
in that then rather small village. His reputation 
for honesty and ability, his urbanity and public 
spirit led to his appointment by the Governor of 
the State, as Judge in the Police Court, a position he 
filled to the satisfaction of the public and retained 
until his death. He was an ardent lover of music, 
and through his efforts made it possible for the citi- 
zens of Holyoke to listen frequently to the best 
music of the times. He served the city three times 
as its mayor and never failed on any occasion to do 
whatever he could to advance its interests. After 
the death of his father, and until the mother had a 
house of her own built for her by her second son, 
she lived in his family. She died in 1885 at the age 
of ninety-one years and four months. George, the 
fourth son, who became a business man at an early 

4 



BIRTH, ANCESTRY AND EDUCATION 

age, made his home in Fort Dodge, Iowa. Here he 
acquired a competent fortune, and was recognized 
as a man of sterling integrity and a leader in public 
affairs. He was interested in the building of rail- 
roads, the draining of swamps, and in whatever 
concerned the welfare of the state. He was three 
times chosen mayor of his adopted city, and from 
1885 to 1888 was Indian Inspector, to the great 
advantage of his wards. He died in July, 1904, aged 
74, leaving three sons and a daughter, who became 
the wife of the late Senator Dolliver of Iowa. Mr. 
Pearsons began his business life in connection with the 
Vermont Central Railroad. In 1868 he moved to Fort 
Dodge, Iowa, where he spent the remainder of his 
days. The brothers differed from each other in 
temperament and personal appearance, but were 
alike in their high standards of duty and in their 
genuine patriotism. Above the ordinary size, wher- 
ever they went, they impressed people by their mag- 
nificent physique and their courtly manners. 

The parents were of Puritan stock and trained 
their children carefully in the principles of their 
faith. Of John Pearsons, the father, his son, the 
Doctor, says, "He was the honestest man I ever 
knew." A Vermont farmer, a descendant of a fam- 
ily which, though with Scotch blood in its veins, had 
resided in the state about one hundred years, by 
strict economy he obtained a good living from 
his land, and at his death left his children an 
honored name and a character in which they could 
not detect a flaw. The mother, Hannah Putnam, a 

5 



LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS 

distant relative of the famous Israel Putnam, was 
distinguished for her mental gifts and her personal 
beauty. Her sparkling black eyes and her keen 
wit have descended to her second son, who resem- 
bles her more than any of her other children. John 
Pearsons and his wife were members of the Metho- 
dist Church of Bradford, and in it the children 
acquired their church-going habit. Dr. Pearsons 
has often referred to the long walks he took with 
his mother Sunday mornings to attend Sunday 
school. The grandparents on the father's side were 
Congregationalists. To each of these churches the 
Doctor has given a fund of five thousand dol- 
lars on condition that the Methodists care for 
the graves of the father and mother, and the Congre- 
gationalists for the graves of the grandparents. 
He has also provided a library for his native town. 
In the winter the children attended the district 
school, and in the summer worked on the farm. 
Early in his life Daniel determined to get an educa- 
tion and make a place for himself in the world. His 
mother encouraged him and his father was ready to 
assist him as far as his means allowed. He studied 
in the Bradford Academy and in the Montpelier 
Conference (then Newbury) Seminary, where he 
prepared for Dartmouth College, and where he was 
converted. To this seminary he has given fifty 
thousand dollars, as part of its endowment. Lack 
of money compelled him to leave college at the end 
of the first year. He had lived on less than a dollar 
a week, had boarded himself, and like many another 

6 



BIRTH, ANCESTRY AND EDUCATION 

young man eager for an education, he taught school 
for several winters in Vermont and Massachusetts. 
Although he began to teach when only sixteen he 
was very successful. During these formative years 
an incident occurred which illustrates what he has 
always called the care of "a kind providence." 
When about eighteen or nineteen he decided to go 
to Boston, find a place in a store and become a mer- 
chant. For days he walked the streets unsuccess- 
fully. No one wanted him. With his money nearly 
gone, he went down to the market, near Faneuil 
Hall, met a man with a truck wagon, who hired him 
at once and took him out on the wagon to his home 
in Brookline where he had a dairy and a small farm. 
At the end of the season his employer, an earnest 
Baptist, advised him to attend the Manual Labor 
School which his denomination had established at 
Worcester, Massachusetts, where he could earn his 
way without interfering with his studies. He took 
the advice and at the close of the term a committee 
from a school in the suburbs came to the Academy 
for a teacher, and after interviewing several of the 
young men who had been recommended, insisted 
on seeing "that young man from Vermont, who 
had paid his way by his work," and the only one 
in the school who had done so. A brief consul- 
tation with him led to his employment as the teacher 
of a school in which his experiences have been cher- 
ished in memory as among the pleasantest of his 
life. With the money saved from his Brookline 
engagement and from his winter's service he was 

7 



LIFE OF DR. D. K PEARSONS 

able to continue his preparation for college. In his 
later years Dr. Pearsons spoke very often of the 
pleasure he had in teaching, especially in helping 
earnest students to overcome what to them seemed 
at times insurmountable difficulties. In one of his 
five schools he had an encounter with a bully, larger 
than himself, whom he had whipped thoroughly to 
the great joy of the school and of the entire neigh- 
borhood. In the lawsuit which followed he was 
triumphantly acquitted. The expense of this suit 
was met by the people, and in the dismissal of the 
case, which was for assault and battery, the judge 
said that evidently the "young man had made the 
assault and the teacher had applied the battery." 

In 1841 Dr. Pearsons began his professional 
studies at Woodstock, Vermont, at that time one 
of the best medical schools in New England. Its 
professors were men of distinction in their profession 
and did not fail to arouse the ambition of their 
students. When Dr. Alonzo Clark, one of these 
professors, and a physician of large practise in the 
city of New York, learned that Mr. Pearsons had 
decided to defer graduation a year in order that he 
might earn money for his necessary expenses, he 
offered to loan the hundred dollars needed, provided 
he would remain and take his diploma. He con- 
sented, and not long after graduation settled in 
Chicopee, Massachusetts, where as partner with a 
successful doctor, he earned the first year about 
eighteen hundred dollars, paid off his indebtedness 
and laid something by for future use. This partner- 

8 



BIRTH, ANCESTRY AND EDUCATION 

ship continued for three years, when he bought a 
house, married Miss Marietta Chapin, daughter of 
Deacon Giles Chapin of Chicopee, and began prac- 
tise by himself. This practise became large and 
profitable. With a wife of unusual beauty of per- 
son and singular charm of manner, a member of one 
of the old families of the state, educated in Miss 
Willard's Seminary at Troy, New York, and inter- 
ested in everything that interested her husband or 
promoted the welfare of the community or the 
world, the young physician could hardly fail to 
become a leading figure in the growing manufactur- 
ing town. He was appointed health officer, made 
superintendent of schools, and as a leading citizen 
arranged a course of lectures under the auspices of 
the Cabot Institute in which such men as Dr. J. B. 
C. Smith of Boston, Dr. E. H. Chapin of New York, 
Horace Greeley, Elihu Burritt, Theodore Parker 
and President Hitchcock of Amherst College took 
part. The fee paid was ten dollars a night and 
expenses. The profits from these lecture courses, 
which continued until the lecturers began to demand 
larger pay, were turned over to a Library Associ- 
ation and laid the foundation of the Chicopee Pub- 
lic Library, one of the best of its kind in the state. 
It was during the late thirties and the early forties 
that Mary Lyon was trying to establish a school for 
girls at South Hadley. One of the homes in which 
she was a welcome visitor, and where she received 
sympathy and aid, was that of Deacon Chapin. 
Dr. Pearsons was deeply interested in her efforts, 



LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS 

in the woman herself, in the character and aim of 
her school, which he frequently visited, and decided 
that if he were ever able he would do what he could to 
aid such schools as hers. Neither he nor Miss Lyon 
at that time dreamed of the great institution which 
has grown up in that little country village, or that 
the country physician would put hundreds of thou- 
sands of dollars into its buildings and its endow- 
ment. In the early and middle forties "Pa Hawks," 
as he was called, a retired minister, a unique per- 
sonality, drove from town to town in an old wagon 
drawn by a slow-moving horse, begging bedding, 
dishes, corn, potatoes, almost anything for the girls 
in the new school. It was the sacrifice, the heroism, 
and the enthusiasm of the founders of what is now 
Mount Holyoke College that deepened and made 
permanent Dr. Pearsons' interest in the educa- 
tion of poor boys and girls. 

In love with his profession, satisfied with the posi- 
tion he held in the community, at home in the best 
social circles, it was with genuine surprise, as he has 
told the story, that one day he listened to his wife's 
question, "Why don't we sell out and go West?" 

"What?" said I. "Give up this fine practise 
and begin again ?" "Yes," said she. "I have heard 
you talk with that man from Oregon" (his name was 
Thurston, he represented Oregon in Congress, and 
used to spend some of his vacations in and about 
Chicopee), "and I have made up my mind that you 
were made for a business man." "Whatever I am, 
I owe to my wife," asserts the doctor. "She inter- 

10 



BIRTH, ANCESTRY AND EDUCATION 

ested me in everything good. To her belongs the 
credit for all that I have done. I trusted her judg- 
ment, I never knew it to fail. I always told her 
everything and always followed her advice. Within 
three days a man came along and wanted to buy 
my practise. I sold it to him as quickly as you can 
snap your thumb. My wife's friends were greatly 
disturbed. They thought it was a foolish move. 
But my wife was firm. We broke up housekeeping. 
I sold our house and we spent six months in visiting 
Europe. It was our first trip abroad. My wife 
loved travel. This trip did both of us a great deal 
of good. In 1851 we made our first visit to the 
West. We went as far as Janesville, where an uncle 
and aunt lived. The Railway stopped at Elgin. 
The rest of the way we went by stage. The roads 
were poor and muddy and sometimes we forded the 
rivers. One of our fellow-passengers from Beloit 
to Janesville was a loud-talking swearing sort of 
a man, who found fault with everybody and every- 
thing. At Beloit I saw a building on the hill above 
the river and I asked what that building was. 'Oh,' 
said he, ' that is a college which some cranks from the 
East are trying to build.' All the way to Janesville 
he kept talking against the colleges and I defended 
them. When we reached our destination I went up 
to him, shook my fist in his face, and said I am coming 
out West, and am going to become a very rich man and 
give money to just such colleges as this." And Dr. 
Pearsons always adds, "I have kept my promise." 
It is not surprising that one of his first gifts to 

11 



LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS 

colleges should have been to Beloit. It is surprising 
that it should have been one hundred thousand 
dollars, that it should have been made without 
solicitation and without the knowledge of any one 
connected with the institution. At that time the 
college was small, hardly able to meet its bills, with 
no prospect of the rapid expansion which has brought 
it into a leading position among the colleges of the 
country. If the offer of one hundred thousand dol- 
lars by an unknown man from Chicago, came as an 
overwhelming surprise to the friends of Beloit, there 
was hardly less surprise that the gift was made on 
condition that its trustees and friends raise another 
hundred thousand dollars in about seven weeks to 
match it. Impossible as it seemed to many to meet 
those conditions, they were met, and the college 
placed on a fair financial foundation. There was 
only one man on the Board of Trustees who at that 
time had any personal acquaintance with Dr. 
Pearsons, and to enquirers who wondered if the 
generous stranger would be able to make good his 
promises, he was permitted to give assurances which 
removed every doubt. From that day to this the 
relations between Dr. Pearsons and Beloit have 
been of the most intimate character, and his gifts 
to the college instead of stopping with one hundred 
thousand dollars in buildings and endowments have 
nearly or quite reached the sum of six hundred thou- 
sand dollars. Thus has his promise to give money 
to the college which Eastern cranks were building 
on the hill been redeemed. 

12 



II 

PREPARATION FOR LIFE IN CHICAGO 



II 

PREPARATION FOR LIFE IN CHICAGO 

IN THE period between the sale of his practise in 
Chicopee and his settlement in Chicago, from 
1851 to 1860, Dr. Pearsons was preparing 
himself, consciously or unconsciously, for his busi- 
ness career in the city on Lake Michigan. These 
preparatory years, as Dr. Pearsons always calls 
them, were business years also, and strenuous years 
as well. They were years spent in travel, in lectur- 
ing, in the purchase and sale of wood, timber and 
land, and in study not only of the special subjects 
upon which he addressed the people, but of condi- 
tions, moral, educational and financial, prevailing 
in different sections of the country. 

On his return from Europe, a trip at that time 
not often made by persons in his circumstances, 
Dr. Calvin Cutter of Boston, famous as a physician 
and as an author of text-books on physiology, anat- 
omy and hygiene, persuaded him to go South and 
introduce his books into the schools and higher 
institutions of learning in that section of the country. 
It was arranged that he should lecture on the topics 
treated in the books he had to sell wherever he could 

15 



LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS 

find an opportunity. With headquarters at Nash- 
ville, Tennessee, Dr. and Mrs. Pearsons spent the 
winters of 1852 and 1853 in traveling over Tennessee, 
Kentucky, Alabama and Georgia, the Doctor speak- 
ing in nearly all of the colleges in those states. So 
successful were these two winters in the South that 
he devoted the winters of 1854 and 1855 to lecturing 
in the State of Maine on his own account, without 
regard to the sale of books. In these lectures he 
sought to do good and to disseminate knowledge. 
He had brought home a fine manikin from Europe, 
and with his charts possessed an apparatus which 
could not fail to attract attention. To these lec- 
tures he has often referred as furnishing an eminently 
satisfactory experience in his life. In the winter 
of 1856 lectures were given in the West, and in 1857 
a course was given in Lawrence University, Apple- 
ton, Wisconsin, one of the institutions which years 
afterward received aid from the Doctor's purse. 

Nowhere had he any difficulty in securing an 
audience. Those who have heard him speak from 
college platforms can easily understand how attrac- 
tive he must have been as a lecturer. His subject 
was comparatively new. It was presented as one 
of great importance, as one that concerned the 
health, efficiency and comfort of every living being. 
It was fully illustrated. The lecturer had the fac- 
ulty, inborn and carefully cultivated, of saying in 
simple terse language what he wanted to say and 
no more, and of saying what his audience apparently 
wished him to say. A plain man, like Brutus, he 

16 



PREPARATION FOR LIFE IN CHICAGO 

spoke straight on, and used words which no one had 
any difficulty in understanding. At the end of every 
lecture those who had heard him felt that they had 
learned something worth knowing, had listened to 
a man who had said something for them to remem- 
ber. He was attractive in personal appearance, 
with a clear penetrating voice, absolute master of 
himself, with a fine command of the language of 
common life and a power to employ technical terms 
so that common people could catch their meaning. 
With a native wit which burst forth spontaneously 
in nearly every sentence and illuminated every sub- 
ject upon which he touched, it is only what we 
might have anticipated that he should be as success- 
ful as a lecturer as he had been as a physician, or as 
in later years he would prove himself to be as a man 
of business. During these years he made lecturing 
a business, and took care not to fail in it. 

It was no easy matter, even after the decision had 
been made to go West, to find just the place for a 
permanent home. A visit to Janesville, Wiscon- 
sin, had made it clear that northern Illinois offered 
more attractions for business enterprise than any 
other point in the Middle West. But the decision 
to settle in Chicago was not reached for several 
years. While studying the country and making 
several trips a year between the East and West, the 
Doctor purchased a farm in Vermont on which there 
was a fine lot of wood with a large amount of timber 
on it ready for marketing. He knew that the rail- 
road wanted both timber and wood and that, as the 
2 17 



LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS 

way to the railroad station was down hill, it would 
be easy to haul them to the station. He knew that 
he could secure Frenchmen at a reasonable price to 
get the wood ready for him, and he persuaded him- 
self that after disposing of the wood and timber he 
could sell the farm and its buildings for all they cost 
him. His father, with whom he was staying at the 
time of his purchase of the farm (for which he paid 
cash), was much surprised at what his venturesome 
son had done, and wondered a little what he would 
do next. The father protested, mildly, against the 
desecration which would be wrought by cutting down 
"those beautiful trees" which had stood so long 
and were so dear to the people who lived in the 
neighborhood. The protest did little good. The 
son persisted and in the course of three or four years 
sold his timber and four thousand cords of wood, 
obtained the money for it and then disposed of the 
farm and the buildings on it, for what he had paid 
in the beginning. He was led to undertake this 
experiment while waiting for a business to which 
he could devote his life, partly to show a younger 
brother what could be done in this direction and to 
encourage him to go into business himself. That 
brother was an apt pupil and made good use of the 
instruction he received. 

But four years of lecturing as a business seemed to 
the Doctor a sufficiently long period for that kind 
of life. True, he had made it profitable. He saw 
that he could secure an independent fortune were 
he to follow it. But with all of its attractions it did 

18 



PREPARATION FOR LIFE IN CHICAGO 

not satisfy him, and although he continued to lec- 
ture occasionally for two years longer, here and there, 
and especially in the West, he ceased to look upon 
lecturing as an occupation to be followed through 
life. 

One day, when in Springfield, Massachusetts, the 
owner of 14,000 acres of land in Champaign and 
Livingston Counties, Illinois, met him on the street, 
and asked him if he would undertake the sale of 
these lands on a five per cent commission. The 
offer had come as if by chance and was accepted. 
Mrs. Pearsons and her husband now felt that the 
time had come for them to settle permanently in 
the West; just where, they left the future to decide, 
but somewhere in Illinois. For more than a year 
their headquarters were at Rochelle, Ogle County. 
Here the Doctor owned a farm of several hundred 
acres from which in a single season he cut one hun- 
dred and fifty tons of hay and on it fed seventy head 
of cattle through the winter. But his heart was 
not in farming; rather in selling land for others to 
occupy. 

First of all he sought to discover the best way to 
secure a perfect title to land that had been sold, 
perhaps more than once, for taxes. Very often this 
was a difficult task, for land titles had become very 
complicated. Many who held them would not give 
them up on reasonable terms. There were land 
sharpers in those days in Illinois. It took the Doc- 
tor more than a year to learn their crooked ways; 
but nature had endowed him with keenness of per- 

19 



LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS 

ception and with a shrewdness which the sharpers 
failed to take into account. In a little while they 
soon discovered that in dealing with the people he 
was more than their match. He dealt honestly. 
The people trusted his word. The titles he gave 
proved to be good. There was less and less business 
for men who did not intend to keep their word. 
Such men hated him, as a matter of course. They 
spoke against him. He paid no attention to them, 
but went quietly on disposing of the land already 
entrusted to him, and becoming agent for the sale 
of other large tracts of land and even of small ones, 
if asked to do so. 

Pleasantly situated, as he had been in Rochelle, 
living sometimes with a private family, sometimes 
on his farm, he saw that with the increase in his 
business, it would be for his advantage to be in 
Chicago. Some idea of the extent of that business 
soon after his settlement in that city, may be ob- 
tained from the fact that Michael Sullivan, "the 
land king," made him his agent for the sale of 40,000 
acres and Solomon Sturgis entrusted him with the 
agency for the sale of 20,000 more. Nor were these 
the only tracts of land for which he was agent; his 
growing reputation as a land broker and his extraor- 
dinary success in selling lands where others had 
failed and the confidence which the people in various 
sections of the state had in him led the authorities 
of the Illinois Central Railroad Company to offer 
him the agency for the disposal of their lands. These 
lands they wished to sell to actual settlers. They 

20 



PREPARATION FOR LIFE IN CHICAGO 

were on each side of their right of way and embraced 
every alternate section and extended out for several 
miles. Favorably situated, as we now see they 
were, they were then a drug on the market. Exten- 
sive advertising had done little good. People pre- 
ferred to settle near the rivers, in regions already 
partially occupied. Many of those who had bought 
near the Road were complaining of its unhealthful- 
ness. They suffered from fever, ague and discour- 
agement, and were more ready to offer their own 
lands for sale than to persuade others to purchase 
near them. Furthermore, it was rumored that the 
title to the railroad lands was not good. In such 
circumstances there was little encouragement for a 
man like Dr. Pearsons, whose reputation was already 
made, and who had a large and growing business, to 
become an agent for their sale. He appreciated the 
difficulties which stood in his way, but did not shrink 
from them. He knew he could overcome them. 
Having satisfied himself that these railroad titles 
were flawless, and having brought capitalists in the 
East to his way of thinking, he offered these lands 
for sale, and as he did so, expressed his willingness 
to loan money to their purchasers rather than to 
purchasers of the lands at their side. He knew that 
with the settlement of the country the suffering from 
fever and ague and from homesickness would cease. 
His frank, open ways with the people, his reputation 
as a man who always did as he agreed, who was ready 
to relieve a man from his land if its buyer found it 
too much of a burden for him to carry, rendered it 

21 



LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS 

easy for him to succeed where many others had 
failed. To him, more than anyone else in his gen- 
eration, is the disposal of these lands due, and their 
occupation, by industrious, intelligent and prosper- 
ous communities. 

If we have somewhat anticipated later events in 
Dr. Pearsons' life, it has been in order to bring out 
more clearly the nature of that preparation through 
which he passed before entering upon a business 
career in Chicago, which in less than three decades 
made him several times a millionaire. 

When he came to the City his reputation as a 
dealer in land was fairly well established. Out in 
the State he was better known than by business men 
of Chicago. There the people trusted him implicitly. 
Men in the East controlling large capital had given 
him their complete confidence. The Mtna, Life 
Insurance Company of Hartford, Connecticut, had 
deemed itself fortunate in securing such a man to 
handle its funds. With a business as large as his 
and a reputation for honesty which had never been 
questioned, he was soon reckoned as one of the solid 
men of the city. He had mastered the details of 
the business he had chosen to follow. His accounts 
at the banks were never overdrawn. Bills were al- 
ways paid as soon as presented. He had few, if any, 
confidants, but it was noticed that his transactions 
were large and that he was always able to carry them 
out. 

For such a man with such a training, with such 
capitalists behind him and success already won, it 

22 



PREPARATION FOR LIFE IN CHICAGO 

is easy to see that in spite of the political unrest in 
the country, it would be easy to win a competency, 
and even a large fortune in Chicago. He himself 
has always said that everything worked for his advan- 
tage. He had met with nothing to discourage him. 
Everything that he had touched turned into money. 
True his personal capital was small, but in mental 
power, in business ability he was rich. He was per- 
sistent also. Never for a moment did he doubt 
his complete success. He did not undertake to do 
many things, but the one thing to which he gave his 
mind he made sufficiently important to tax all his 
energies. 

The good Providence, which had led him hitherto, 
and had brought him to Chicago, he felt sure would 
not forsake him there. 

A great blessing had come to him in his wife. She 
never doubted the wisdom of any of his movements. 
They had in fact counselled together in regard to 
them all. She was the silent partner in all her hus- 
band's undertakings. From the day when he sold 
his practise in Massachusetts and they had turned 
their back on its delightful social life, through years 
of patient waiting, she had cheered him with her 
presence and strengthened him by her approval. 
In that early period of their life they were one in 
thought and aim, as they continued to be, until for 
her the end came, and she was taken home to enjoy 
her well-earned rest. But for the wife, the husband 
might not have been able to do what he has done for 
the benefit of his fellowmen. To her wisdom, her 

23 



LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS 

sympathy, her love and her support in weariness and 
disappointment, he could turn for refuge and strength. 
In her clear vision, he never failed to see light. "To 
her," he has said again and again, "I owe everything 
that I have become. The fortune which I have 
distributed was as much hers as mine. She helped 
me to earn it and while she lived she helped me to 
distribute it." 



24 



Ill 

CHICAGO IN 1860 AND AFTER 



Ill 

CHICAGO IN 1860 AND AFTER 

THE Census of 1860 gave Chicago a population 
slightly in excess of 112,000. At that time 
the three divisions of the city, North, West 
and South, were well marked. The North Side was 
the aristocratic side. It had been first settled, and 
by excellent and prosperous families. On or near 
the shore of the lake dwelt such men as the Honorable 
Isaac N. Arnold, member of Congress, and Author 
of a Life of Lincoln, Ezra McCagg, Judge Mark 
Skinner, Mahlon D. Ogden, William B. Ogden, by 
common consent, the ablest, most prominent and 
influential citizen of Chicago, E. H. Sheldon, Walter 
L. Newberry, the founder of the Newberry Library, 
E. B. Washburn, Minister of the United States to 
France, Gurdon S. Hubbard, the Indian Trader, and 
E. W. Blatchford, interested in every plan formed 
for the benefit of the city. Such a group of men — 
and associated with them were many others whose 
names cannot be here mentioned — it would have 
been difficult at that time to have found in any other 
city of its size in the country. The residence quar- 
ter on the North Side was very attractive. Though 

27 



LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS 

the houses were nearly all of wood, they stood back 
from the street in the midst of ample grounds and 
were surrounded by trees which furnished abundant 
shade. Houses similar to these, though less costly, 
were scattered along the Lake Shore, beyond what 
is now Lincoln Park, out into Lake View, on whose 
open fields the German contingent in the city was 
wont to make merry on Sundays and holidays. 

Then, as now, there were more people on the West 
Side than on the other two sides combined. But 
beyond Ashland Boulevard, then Reuben Street, 
and south of Adams Street, the houses were few and 
widely scattered. Here and there manufacturing 
establishments had begun to spring up. The popu- 
lation was chiefly of the industrial class. It was 
intelligent, energetic and frugal. Not a few men of 
wealth belonged to it and lived in its midst. Be- 
yond Twenty-second Street on the South Side, with 
the exception of a few houses on Cottage Grove 
Avenue, the territory was largely unoccupied. The 
Stock Yards were about one half mile west of Camp 
Douglass, where Confederate prisoners were kept 
during the war. This camp was at the corner of 
Thirty-first Street and Cottage Grove Avenue. In 
1860 and for some years afterward, Chicago pre- 
sented the appearance, to a stranger, of an over- 
grown country village, with here and there a street 
which reminded one of a city. 

Among the dealers in real estate Peter Page and 
the Bowen Brothers were prominent. Potter Palmer 
with Marshall Field and L. Z. Leiter, as partners, 

28 



CHICAGO IN 1860 AND AFTER 

C. B. and J. V. Far well, controlled the dry-goods 
business. J. W. Doane, G. S. Hubbard, E. W. 
Blatchford, Cyrus H. McCormick, T. W. Harvey 
and scores of others hardly less prominent in different 
lines of business, were building up fortunes for them- 
selves, and at the same time doing what they could 
to build up the city. Among the physicians, Dr. 
N. S. Davis was a leader; Emory A. Storrs stood at 
the head of the Bar. Solomon Smith, W. F. Cool- 
baugh, Chauncy M. Blair and George Smith, who 
died in London only a few years ago leaving a very 
large fortune, were leading bankers. The late Chief 
Justice Melville W. Fuller was a rising young lawyer. 
Van H. Higgins, Norman B. Judd, Jerome Beecher, 
Jacob Beidler, Peter Schuttler, the wagon maker, 
B. W. Raymond, L. D. Boone, T. M. Avery, H. Z. 
Culver, Deacon Philo Carpenter, Deacon William 
Bross, afterwards Lieutenant Governor of Illinois, 
in addition to those above mentioned, were some of 
the men with whom during his early years in Chicago, 
Dr. Pearsons was brought into contact. To say 
that in ability, he compared favorably with the best 
of them, is not going beyond the truth. For a young 
city the pulpit, too, had fully its share of fame. Dr. 
W. W. Everts of the First Baptist Church, Dr. Z. M. 
Humphrey of the First Presbyterian Church, Dr. 
R. W. Patterson of the Second Presbyterian Church, 
Drs. T. M. Eddy and I. H. Tiffany of the Methodist 
Church, Dr. W. W. Patton of the First Congrega- 
tional Church, Dr. W. H. Ryder of St. Paul's Uni- 
versalist Church, Dr. Robert Collyer of Unity Church 



LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS 

were men who were able to fill any pulpit in the land. 
Without exception they were staunch defenders of 
the Union and throughout the war were untiring in 
their efforts to support the government and provide 
for the wants of the soldiers. Not less outspoken 
than they or less earnest in their service were Dr. 
Robert H. Clarkson of St. James' Episcopal Church 
and Father Dennis Dunne of the Roman Catholic 
Church. From his own minister, Dr. Humphrey, 
and from each of the others, as he listened to them 
from time to time, Dr. Pearsons heard words which 
could not fail to deepen his sense of the value of an 
education and his conviction that opportunities for 
acquiring it should be open to the children of the 
poorest families in the country. 

The leading newspaper was The Tribune, owned in 
part but edited and controlled by Joseph Medill, 
whose instinct for journalism was inborn, and whose 
great ability was always used for what he conceived 
to be right. Its competitor, The Times, brilliant 
and somewhat unscrupulous, was edited and owned 
by William F. Story, a man of rare talent, and greatly 
loved by those who knew him intimately. During 
the war this paper was not always loyal to the Gov- 
ernment. The evening journals were of less impor- 
tance, though they filled a large place in the estima- 
tion of the public. Outside their respective denom- 
inations, the religious papers were little known and 
their circulation was small. The business of the 
city was ranged around the Court House, which 
stood on the present site of the City Hall, and occu- 

30 



CHICAGO IN 1860 AND AFTER 

pied an entire block. It was not till after the war, 
although the city rapidly increased in size during 
the period of hostilities, that a new and better Chi- 
cago began to show itself. This new Chicago, which 
the Census of 1870 reported as having a population 
of 293,000, was in its business section, as well as in 
its North Side residence quarter, almost wholly 
swept away by the fire of 1871. In the new Chicago, 
which gradually took the place of the one which had 
been destroyed, its builders had commendable pride, 
though many years passed before all the marks 
which the tornado of fire had left were removed. 
That third Chicago is now giving place to a city 
whose hotels, immense stores, sky-scrapers, office 
buildings, railway-stations and palatial homes call 
forth the admiration of every visitor. That a retail 
store, and a dry-goods store at that, should occupy 
in the first decade of the new century, the entire 
front on State Street, between Washington and 
Randolph Streets and nearly as much space on the 
Wabash Avenue front had hardly entered the mind 
of Marshall Field, the great merchant, or of any of 
his partners in the seventies or the eighties. Nor 
had William Deering or Cyrus H. McCormick or 
P. D. Armour or Gustavus A. Swift dreamed of a 
business like that which their successors now control. 
But even then the stress of business was severe and 
the problems which were daily coming up for solu- 
tion were perplexing. That so many of them were 
solved satisfactorily may well excite wonder. 

Lake Street was the center of the dry-goods trade 

31 



LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS 

of the city. Dearborn Street, between Lake and 
Madison Streets, was the center of the banking 
business. Until 1864, the Second Baptist Church 
worshipped in a building which stood on the South 
East corner of La Salle and Washington Street, a 
corner afterwards occupied by the Board of Trade. 
The Second Presbyterian Church was at the corner 
of Wabash Avenue and Randolph Street, and the 
First Baptist Church and the First Presbyterian 
Church were not far from each other on Wabash 
Avenue near Van Buren Street. 

Where the Auditorium Hotel now stands was a 
row of marble fronts, three stories in height, with 
a basement for kitchen and dining room, known as 
the Marble Terrace, in which Tuthill King, S. C. 
Griggs, J. W. Peck, J. W. Scammon and ex-Governor 
Bross had their homes. This row of houses was 
destroyed in the fire of 1871 and was never fully 
rebuilt. 

Important as Chicago was in 1860 as a business 
center, it was then yet little more than a straggling 
western town. Since the panic of 1857 there had 
not been much building. The prevailing architec- 
ture, save in a few residence quarters, was unattrac- 
tive. The hotels were the most imposing buildings 
in the city. As houses of entertainment, few better 
could be found anywhere. Among them the Sher- 
man House, Tremont, Richmond and Metropolitan 
deserve mention. 

The Wigwam, in which Abraham Lincoln was 
nominated for the Presidency, stood on Market 

32 



CHICAGO IN 1860 AND AFTER 

Street between Randolph and Washington Streets. 
In it the Honorable W. M. Evarts of New York City, 
presented as a candidate for the Presidency the name 
of the Honorable William H. Seward of New York, 
whose nomination the East had taken for granted. 
He was followed by the Honorable Norman B. Judd 
of Chicago, who presented the name of Abraham Lin- 
coln of Illinois. There were no nominating speeches 
like those to which we are now accustomed. But 
feeling was intense and often very bitter. Outside 
his own state Lincoln was little known, while Seward 
was known and honored throughout the whole coun- 
try. The nomination of Lincoln added to the inter- 
est which the East had begun to take in Chicago, 
and drew attention to it as a new center for the 
creation and expression of public opinion. Through- 
out the war Chicago was faithful to the cause of the 
Union, not only in the raising and equipment of sol- 
diers, but in providing for their comfort in field and 
hospital. It was in this city that immense fairs were 
held in the interest of the Sanitary Commission, in 
which such women as Mrs. M. D. Hoge and Mrs. 
Mary Livermore were prominent and movements 
originated which contributed not a little to the 
efficiency of our armies. 

But while outwardly patriotic and apparently 
ready to submit to any sacrifice for the honor of the 
flag, the city as early as 1859 was divided into parties 
which took opposite sides on the questions which 
led to the Civil War. Native Americans, coming 
from places north of Mason and Dixon's Line, were 
s 33 



LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS 

for freedom and the Union, at whatever cost. Sym- 
pathizing with them were the Germans and the 
Scandinavians, an important element in the city, 
and a majority of the Irish. Men born and educated 
in the South, and the number was quite large, fa- 
vored slavery and the doctrine of States Rights, and 
were willing to permit secession as a last resort. 
These honest differences of opinion and the discus- 
sions to which they gave rise, help to make Chicago 
an interesting place in which to live, even if its busi- 
ness interests were sometimes threatened. 



34 



IV 
BUSINESS LIFE IN CHICAGO 



IV 
BUSINESS LIFE IN CHICAGO 

IT WAS a rainy morning in April, 1860, when Dr. 
and Mrs. Pearsons came to Chicago to live. 
They had no home of their own to which they 
might go. There were no friends or relatives to bid 
them welcome. Their entrance into the city excited 
little interest, either on the part of men of wealth or 
of the general public. As capital, the Doctor brought 
five thousand dollars in cash in his handbag and 
deeds to farms he owned out in the state. 

A slight acquaintance with Mr. William H. Carter, 
who kept a boarding-house at 46 Van Buren Street, 
led him thither. Here board was secured for him- 
self and wife at ten dollars a week. Here for several 
years they had their home. A desk for business 
was hired in the office of Harvey B. Hurd and Henry 
Booth, 116 Randolph Street, for twenty-five dollars 
a year. The second year the rent was doubled, and 
the third, on the ground of the Doctor's growing 
business, it was trebled. The Doctor decided that 
if he must pay seventy-five dollars a year for a desk 
in an office not his own, it would be better for him 
to have an office which he could control. One was 

37 



LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS 

found at a moderate rent not far from the one he had 
occupied. It was in the Methodist Church Block. 
This office he cared for himself and remained in it 
for several years. It was always in good order. 

When Mr. Carter, following the example of 
Messrs. Hurd and Booth, raised the price of board 
beyond what Dr. Pearsons deemed a reasonable 
figure, he determined to have a house and home of 
his own. He found no difficulty in exchanging land 
in the country for 48 Van Buren Street, where he 
lived many years. The house was well situated. It 
was not far from the business center of the city, not 
far from the First Presbyterian Church, at which 
Dr. and Mrs. Pearsons were constant attendants. 
As the city grew, however, this house became less 
and less desirable as a place of residence; and after 
disposing of it, its occupants went to the Palmer 
House, where they continued to reside for sixteen 
or seventeen years, or until their removal in 1885 
to Hinsdale, a suburb sixteen miles from the city. 

From a business point of view to most men the 
outlook in 1860 would not have appeared altogether 
promising. At that time few would have thought it 
possible to lay the foundations of a large fortune by 
the sale of land in neglected sections of the state. 

Hay, when delivered, was bringing one dollar and 
fifty cents a ton. Oats were selling at twelve and 
one half cents a bushel. Corn brought only ten 
cents a bushel. What inducement could there be to 
buy land in Illinois? Neither farming nor stock- 
raising at prevailing prices offered any great attrac- 



BUSINESS LIFE IN CHICAGO 

tion to settlers. With an energy that seemed inex- 
haustible, and an optimism that discouragements 
could not weaken, Dr. Pearsons began and continued 
to persuade men and women from the East, native 
Americans, not a few of whom were of Scotch, Irish 
or German descent, to make their homes in Illinois. 
Of failure there was no thought. Sales of land were 
made in lots of forty, eighty, one hundred and 
twenty, one hundred and sixty acres, one quarter 
of the price in cash, the remainder in one, two, three 
years with interest at six per cent although the 
regular rate was ten per cent or more. Usually he 
was ready to loan money on favorable terms for 
improvements, and thus was able to secure one fee 
for the sale of the land, and another for lending 
money with which to improve it. 

When he settled in Chicago he was forty years old. 
His faculties were well developed and thoroughly 
disciplined. Rugged strength and a tenacious pur- 
pose had come to him through his early struggles 
and continued self-denials for an education. As a 
physician he had studied people and learned some- 
thing of the motives by which they are influenced. 
Interest in Mary Lyon and her work for young 
women, as well as personal efforts to improve the 
sanitary, the intellectual and the moral conditions 
of the village in which he had lived, had introduced 
an altruistic element into his character which years 
afterward became masterful. Travel abroad had 
given him a glimpse of old-world conditions, and 
travel in his own country had prepared him for the 



LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS 

business career upon which he was now entering. 
He knew men East and West, North and South. 
Tall, straight as an arrow, with no superfluous flesh, 
with a keen black eye, which seemed to penetrate 
to the depths of one's nature at a glance, with a 
dignity of movement and manner which indicated 
complete confidence in himself, with a frankness and 
even bluntness of expression which spoke of honesty 
of purpose and a determination to deal fairly with 
all who came to him, he began in Chicago that 
struggle for wealth which in thirty years brought 
about results with which the world is familiar. 

Whatever others may have thought, the man and 
the times, were suited to each other. The oppor- 
tunities for business which the city and state afforded 
with the difficulties connected with them, were just 
what a person with Dr. Pearsons' temperament and 
character needed to stimulate him in the highest 
degree and to bring out all that was best in him. To 
his credit it should be said that if the money-making 
instinct was strong in him, equally strong was the 
purpose that the gains which came to him should 
sometime be devoted to the cause of Christian 
education. 

The years were strenuous, the earlier ones in par- 
ticular. For months at a time, Monday morning 
would find the Doctor at a railway station, carpet- 
bag in hand, ready for a trip to the country. He 
had carefully arranged his route. He knew where 
he would stop at night, where he would get each 
meal. It was not at every house one would care to 

40 



BUSINESS LIFE IN CHICAGO 

sleep or eat. Ordinarily the Doctor would take 
from four to six men with him to see the land he 
was offering for sale. These men were all prospec- 
tive buyers. But the Doctor did not care to sell 
until purchasers had been on the land he wished 
them to buy. While looking over the different 
tracts of land, one would say, "I will take this sec- 
tion, or a part of it," another would choose another 
section, and a third and a fourth each, another, 
till the entire tract, sometimes containing several 
thousand acres, was sold. On one of the best of 
these days more than five thousand acres passed 
through his hands. In this way the foundations of 
many villages were laid, which afterwards grew into 
large and prosperous towns. Was this kind of work 
profitable? Ask the Doctor, and he will tell you that 
his five per cent commission on the sale of land 
brought him very large returns. Did all of this 
remain in his hands? By no means. Some of it 
was expended in order that more might be made. 
Apart from the cost of selling, which was deducted 
from his profits, he was constantly asked for special 
gifts. Men would say, "We are Methodists," or, 
"We are Baptists" or " Presbyterians, and we must 
settle where we can have schoolhouses or a church, 
where we can feel at home, or a library," and then 
the Doctor would reply, "Get together just such a 
company as you want, select the place where you 
want to live, and I will furnish the land at so much 
an acre. I will loan you so much on it and I will 
give one hundred, two hundred, perhaps three hun- 

41 



LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS 

dred dollars for your schoolhouse, church or library." 
Though the Doctor believed in being generous with 
the people who bought his land, he disclaimed any 
idea of benevolence in gifts like those just men- 
tioned. They were investments from which he looked 
for large returns in money. All the same, they were 
gifts, and their frequency, and their amount had a 
share in preparing him for the time when the making 
of money would cease and the distribution of it 
became the business of his life. 

It was in the eastern part of the state or a little 
to the east of the center that the larger portion of 
the land Dr. Pearsons had for sale was located. 
Prior to his coming to Illinois settlers had shunned, 
as undesirable, lands very far east of the line of the 
Illinois Central Railroad, or even adjoining it. The 
Doctor saw very soon that if he would succeed in his 
business, he must convince people that just as good 
homes could be made on the lands he had for sale as 
those already occupied farther West. With the re- 
sources at his command he soon effected an entire 
change of feeling in the minds of incoming settlers. 

Sundays were spent in Chicago. They were 
happy, restful days. Mornings and evenings, Dr. 
and Mrs. Pearsons would be in their pew in the First 
Presbyterian Church. At home the Doctor would 
learn from his wife what the women of the church were 
trying to do for the needy, and through her, money 
would find its way to them in ever-enlarging streams 
of benevolence. The first year of his life in Chicago 
saw him a teacher in the Railroad Mission established 

42 



BUSINESS LIFE IN CHICAGO 

by Father Kent, and under the care of the First Pres- 
byterian Church; he was soon deeply interested 
in it and glad to give both time and money to its 
support. Patriotic as a man born in Vermont and 
living so long in Massachusetts could hardly fail to 
be, in spite of the political excitement of the times, 
he gave himself wholly to business. Perhaps, like 
many others, he doubted at first if the South would 
take up arms against the North. Were war to 
break out, he could not believe it would be serious 
or last long. He felt, too, that in bringing the right 
kind of men into the State as permanent residents, he 
was adding strength to the cause of freedom. 

More and more his office became the center of 
important money transactions. Profits from his 
regular business and from increasingly large invest- 
ments drew the attention of moneyed men to him. 
As has been said, he not only sold land, but also 
loaned money on it after its sale. For many years 
hundreds of thousands of dollars were paid out by 
him for first mortgages and in a majority of instances 
on land which he himself had sold. Nor need any- 
one be surprised at the amount of the loans he made, 
for he sold not less than two hundred thousand 
acres of land in Illinois alone. In the decade from 
1860 to 1870 Dr. Pearsons became a rich man. He 
was recognized as such in banking circles and in the 
commercial circles of the city. His advice was 
sought in matters pertaining to the city as the 
advice of one of its leading citizens. When a new 
bank was formed, it was a good advertisement for 

43 



LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS 

it, if the name of Dr. D. K. Pearsons could be found 
in the list of its stockholders. It was equally valu- 
able for the Company which was seeking to develop 
the South Side City Railway System. A man of 
the strictest integrity, of unusual force of charac- 
ter, of rare judgment in all financial matters, he 
easily had found a place among the financial leaders 
of the city. 

It was in the late sixties that Dr. Pearsons began 
to buy pine lands in Michigan. Business friends 
shook their heads, warned him against the risks he 
was taking, said that there was timber enough in 
Michigan to last five hundred years, and that any 
man buying these lands would surely lose all of the 
money he put into them. The Doctor persisted, as 
he usually did when he made up his mind to do any- 
thing, and kept on buying and paying cash for his 
purchases, until he had become the owner of six- 
teen thousand acres of some of the best timber land 
in the state. He, himself, superintended the cutting 
of the logs, and often sold them himself. The Fire 
of 1871 increased the demand for timber, and it was 
fortunate for him, that when twelve of his houses 
on the North Side were burned, he could exchange 
his lumber for their reconstruction. The fire 
brought him his share of loss, although he suffered 
less than many others, for the larger part of his 
houses were on the South Side. But he was one of 
the men who with courage went through those terri- 
ble days of devastation and suffering, and gave him- 
self earnestly and enthusiastically to the work of 

44 



BUSINESS LIFE IN CHICAGO 

reconstruction. From him no expression of doubt 
was ever heard as to the power of the city to rise 
from its ashes with new strength and a more pros- 
perous business life than it had yet seen. 

A broker in land, a lender of money, director in 
several banks, director in the South Side City Rail- 
way Company, representative of the iEtna Life 
Insurance Company of Hartford, Connecticut, and 
of other men's interests till 1877, in that year he 
laid aside the obligations he had hitherto assumed 
for others, and gave himself wholly to his own inter- 
ests. The business which he had built up, he turned 
over to two of his clerks, Mr. H. A. Pearsons, a 
nephew, and Mr. O. B. Taft, young men of fine 
business ability who first, as Pearsons and Taft, 
and later as the Pearsons-Taft Land Credit Com- 
pany, have continued and enlarged that business, 
until it is now one of the most prominent and sound- 
est land companies in the United States. 



45 



V 
BUSINESS LIFE IN CHICAGO— Continued 



V 

BUSINESS LIFE IN CHICAGO— Continued 

FOR the twelve years following 1877, Dr. Pear- 
sons continued in business for himself only. 
He bought and sold in his own name, land, 
houses, wood, timber. A large depositor in the 
banks, he rarely or never borrowed from them or 
did anything that in any way could shake his credit. 
A great deal of his property was in such shape that 
he could get its value in cash at short notice. Such 
bankers as Solomon Smith and Chauncy Blair were 
his close friends. Daniel A. Jones of the Board of 
Trade was another man with whom, in the church 
as well as in business, he was intimately associated, 
and of whose estate of four million dollars, he was 
one of the executors. From this estate he secured 
one hundred thousand dollars for the Presbyterian 
Hospital, which under the influence of Drs. J. P. 
Ross and E. A. Hamill he had been instrumental in 
founding. To this hospital he himself has given not 
far from another hundred thousand dollars, in addi- 
tion to personal service the value of which cannot 
be estimated. Without this service it is doubtful 
if the hospital could have been established as early 
4 49 



LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS 

as 1873, certainly not with anything like its finan- 
cial strength and magnificent equipment. 

Many of the men with whom he was associated 
in the management of the South Side Railway were 
men of very strong personality. S. B. Cobb, Jerome 
Beecher, whose names are borne by some of the 
buildings on the campus of the University of Chi- 
cago, Jacob Rosenberg, S. W. Allerton, were men of 
wealth and of decided convictions as to the way 
in which business should be conducted. Dr. Pear- 
sons was equally strong in his convictions. These 
were the men who advocated the use of the cable in 
place of horses, and later were willing to replace 
the cable with electricity. Conservative as they 
all were, they did not hesitate to spend money for 
improvements which would reduce the cost of oper- 
ation, furnish better service to the public and increase 
their own profits. 

As a large owner of real estate Dr. Pearsons was 
brought in close relations with real estate men, and 
from them learned at first hand when to buy and 
when to sell. But neither he nor any of the men in 
whose judgment he confided, had any true idea of 
the changes which would take place in the values 
of land within the city limits, or in its outlying 
districts. They failed to perceive the full extent 
of the change which would be wrought in trans- 
portation by the use of electricity instead of the 
cable, by the building of elevated roads or by increas- 
ing facilities for suburban travel. They knew that 
the changes wrought by these means would be 

50 



BUSINESS LIFE IN CHICAGO 

very great and of immense importance, but their 
full significance when they were made, no one seems 
to have grasped. They would have scouted the 
idea that land would ever bring within the loop the 
price now asked for it. Nor did they foresee the 
demand which would be made and continue to be 
made for land for great business establishments 
within or near the limits of the city. 

Though not in competition with any of the 
real estate men of the city, at the head of a busi- 
ness whose interests were out in the state rather 
than in the city, he was yet brought by the force of 
his character and by the success of the business 
which he managed into close relations with the lead- 
ing business-men of the city, and as a man of wealth 
was associated with them by the public. That he 
was influenced by the remarkable men whose names 
have been given in the preceding chapter and that 
in his turn he influenced them, is certainly true. In 
any other city and among other men he might not 
have become the man he was or have attained the 
prominence he did, as one of the leaders in the finan- 
cial affairs of the city. 

Great as were the interests of the later years of 
his business life, Dr. Pearsons did not allow himself, 
under the pressure of the surprising changes then 
going forward, to forget the social, intellectual and 
refining interests of the city. He had a share, and 
no small one, in organizing the Society of the Sons 
of Vermont, was a constant attendant at its meet- 
ings, over which he sometimes presided and not 

51 



LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS 

infrequently addressed. He was interested also 
in the work of the Historical Society, the Academy 
of Sciences and the Art Institute. He was one of 
the men to whom it was possible to go for advice 
and aid in anything which really concerned the wel- 
fare of the city. 

As Chairman for fifteen years of the Board of 
Trustees of the First Presbyterian Church, he took 
the lead with such able helpers as Messrs. Swift 
and Sherwood in paying the debt of eighty-two 
thousand dollars resting on the Society. Toward 
that debt, first and last, he himself contributed not 
less than fifteen thousand dollars to say nothing of 
the time spent in visiting persons in order to obtain 
their subscriptions. Those who were present can 
never forget the surprise they felt when one Sunday 
morning Dr. Arthur Mitchell, the pastor, stopped 
in the midst of his sermon and asked Dr. Pearsons 
to come forward and address the people. The con- 
gregation was large. Men of wealth were there in 
goodly numbers. Rather more than forty thousand 
dollars were still to be pledged if the debt was paid. 
The trustees had said that sum could not be secured 
and so thought the pastor. Dr. Pearsons was con- 
fident that it could be. His first words were words 
of cheer. "This debt is going to be paid this morn- 
ing. We can pay it and we will pay it. It only 
means that those who have given; one thousand 
dollars must give two thousand. I have given 
five thousand dollars and I am going to give five 
thousand more." Then the tellers, carefully selected 

52 



BUSINESS LIFE IN CHICAGO 

by Dr. Pearsons beforehand, went round to receive 
pledges. Thirty thousand dollars came in. Ten 
thousand were left. "Who will provide for this 
little remnant of debt in blocks of two hundred and 
fifty dollars each?" In a few minutes the blocks 
were taken and so ended this debt-paying affair 
which meant so much to this important church, 
but which Dr. Pearsons used to say was not worth 
mentioning. Its success was due to the generosity, 
the wisdom, the patience and the persistency of 
the man who has done so much for the colleges of 
our country. 

In 1873, while living at the Palmer House, in the 
First Ward, Dr. Pearsons was nominated as an alder- 
man to represent that ward in the common council. 
It was an independent nomination, but was promptly 
accepted by both parties, so that the election was 
practically unanimous. He served in the council 
for three years and to the duties which came to him 
as alderman, gave almost undivided attention. 
Speaking of the time required for the discharge of 
these duties he has said again and again, it cost him 
not less than fifty thousand dollars a year to serve 
the Ward while he represented it. Mayor Heath 
made him chairman of the finance committee which 
included such men as S. H. McCrea, once President 
of the Board of Trade, Jacob Rosenberg and J. B. 
Briggs. The city had suffered very greatly from the 
fire of October 9, 1871. Taxes had been collected 
with difficulty. Even those of 1873 and 1874 were 
delinquent. It was a part of the duty of the finance 

53 



LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS 

committee to discover some way to collect them. 
Meanwhile the credit of the city was at a low ebb. 
In fact it was as nearly bankrupt as a city could be 
and preserve the semblance of credit. It was pay- 
ing its bills in scrip which was selling at a discount. 
Through a New York bank, five hundred thousand 
dollars worth of bonds had been sold. Interest on 
them was overdue and the creditors were demanding 
their money. Mayor Heath and the other members 
of the finance committee urged Dr. Pearsons to go 
to New York, pacify these bondholders by explain- 
ing the situation, and persuade them to give the city 
a little more time to meet its obligations. The 
president of the bank through which the bonds had 
been sold gave Dr. Pearsons a hearty welcome and 
set aside a room for him in which to meet the dis- 
appointed and clamoring creditors. 

There was something in Dr. Pearsons' appear- 
ance that created a favorable feeling toward him on 
their part, from the very first. In reporting that 
meeting he said that as these creditors gathered, 
they had little to say about what was due them, 
but a great deal about what the city had suffered 
from the fire. Although no money was paid them 
at the time, they went away satisfied that the city 
would finally, as it did, meet all of its obligations. 
There was a single exception. One man came into 
the room where Dr. Pearsons was conferring with 
the creditors, saying in a loud voice and waving a 
piece of paper, "Where is that man from Chicago? 
I want my money, and I want it now." 

54 



BUSINESS LIFE IN CHICAGO 

"Do you want the principal as well as the interest?" 

"Can I have it?" he asked. 

"Certainly," replied Dr. Pearsons. "Wait until 
I telegraph to Chicago; I have money in the bank. 
I will pay you myself. The credit of the city is 
good. I will advance you the money." 

"Do you mean that you will pay this money 
yourself, and do you say that the credit of the city 
is good?" 

"Yes, sir." 

"Well, then," said the man, in a different tone of 
voice, "if I can have my money when I want it, I 
do not care for it now," and putting his paper in his 
pocket he quietly withdrew. This was one of the 
men who had given the President of the Bank a 
great deal of trouble by his unreasonable demands 
for his money. It was the manner of Dr. Pearsons, 
his tact in dealing with men, his ability and when 
necessary, as in the case just mentioned, his willing- 
ness to pledge his own fortune to save the credit of 
the city, that rendered this visit to New York at this 
critical period in its history, so important and so 
memorable. Without the aid and the firmness of 
such Mayors as Monroe Heath and Thomas Hoyne, 
backed by such men as formed their Finance Com- 
mittee, the scrip which had been issued to meet 
current expenses would have been repudiated. For 
on some technical ground the court pronounced its 
issue illegal. The Finance Committee refused to 
take advantage of the creditors of the city, even with 
a decision of a court behind them. In time the scrip 

55 



LIFE OF DR. D. K PEARSONS 

was taken up at its full value. It is doubtful if any 
three years of Dr. Pearsons' life have ever been more 
useful than the three years in which he served Chi- 
cago as alderman from the First Ward. 

In 1889 the public was startled by the announce- 
ment that Dr. D. K. Pearsons had retired from busi- 
ness, that having acquired a fortune he saw no 
reason for increasing it, that as he had no children 
to provide for, no relatives dependent upon him for 
support, he could see no reason why he should not 
devote the remainder of his days to travel and to the 
employment of the means which God had entrusted 
to him for the welfare of others. But the announce- 
ment made it clear that it would do no good to 
solicit gifts from him, that having acquired his for- 
tune through his own efforts he would dispose of it 
without asking advice from any one. 

Some years before reaching this decision Dr. 
Pearsons had purchased a ten-acre tract of land in 
Hinsdale, a suburb on the Burlington Road, sixteen 
miles from the city of Chicago. The land was 
slightly rolling, well covered with noble trees, and 
within a short walk from the railway station. Almost 
in the center of this beautiful tract, the Doctor 
erected a large and comfortable house and furnished 
it in accordance with his wife's wishes and in deference 
to her taste. In this delightful home they lived 
together until 1906, when Mrs. Pearsons, after a 
long illness, passed on to her eternal rest. Lovers 
of the beautiful, not indifferent to what is known as 
good living, with no pleasure in the gaieties of life, 

56 



BUSINESS LIFE IN CHICAGO 

rarely entering into society, caring nothing for 
fashion, above the temptation to spend money for 
show, they were satisfied to dwell apart from the 
strife of the business world, and to consider in what 
way they could most wisely invest the means God 
had given them for the permanent advantage of the 
youth of the nation. At Hinsdale they resumed the 
simple life in which they had taken such pleasure 
at 48 Van Buren Street, and still earlier, in Chicopee, 
Massachusetts. They enjoyed the visits of con- 
genial friends and the freedom of abundant space 
and pure air, and with daily rides in an attractive 
country they renewed their strength and deepened 
their interest in the welfare of mankind. 

Free from business obligations, Dr. and Mrs. 
Pearsons were at liberty to go where they pleased, 
whether in their own country or in other countries. 
Both were very fond of travel, fond of meeting intel- 
ligent people with views somewhat different from 
their own. Three times they crossed the Atlantic 
and extended their visits East. They made them- 
selves familiar with the Pacific Coast from Southern 
California to Alaska. Winters they spent wholly, 
or in part, at the South, sometimes visiting again the 
places they had visited in the early years of their 
business life. Summers often found them in New 
England with friends or at quiet resorts where they 
met people with whom it was a pleasure to associate. 

A very important member of the Hinsdale family 
was a sister of Mrs. Pearsons, Miss Julia A. Chapin, 
who had cared for her mother in the East till her 

57 



LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS 

death, and who afterwards made her home in Hins- 
dale. She was a brilliant woman, intellectually and 
socially, very benevolent, and heartily in sympathy 
with her brother and sister in their plans of dispos- 
ing of their wealth. At her death in 1904, the Wom- 
an's Board of Foreign Missions for the Interior, 
received a bequest from her of more than $23,000.00 
as an endowment. To this home there came visitors 
from every section of the country, and even from 
abroad, seeking for such aid as its inmates were giv- 
ing and confirming them in the wisdom of the plans 
they had determined to follow. Here were discussed 
those methods of giving which have placed so many 
of our colleges on a good financial basis and have made 
a higher education possible even for poor boys and 
girls. Nor were these discussions confined to the 
United States alone. The interests and needs of the 
foreign field were not forgotten. Anatolia College 
in Turkey received large and timely aid, and through 
Mrs. Pearsons the Presbyterians were enabled to 
keep at least two women steadily at work in the 
fields under their care. Young women from the 
South, chiefly from Berea, born among the moun- 
tains, uncultured and untrained as they were, were 
received into the home, and while employed as serv- 
ants were treated as friends and companions; after 
receiving instructions from Mrs. Pearsons in the 
mysteries and duties of housekeeping and the usages 
of good society, they returned to the college to finish 
their studies, or to their homes, from which others 
were sent away for an education. 

58 



BUSINESS LIFE IN CHICAGO 

Here we may pause to ask how it was possible for 
a man forty years of age, without influential friends, 
in less than thirty years to acquire a fortune of sev- 
eral millions of dollars in a city like Chicago? Most 
people would say it was because of his rare business 
capacity, the singleness of his aim, of his power to 
read men at a glance, his honesty in all his transac- 
tions, and his evident interest in the welfare of the 
men with whom he dealt. The Doctor's answer to 
this question always has been, "Through a kind 
Providence all things worked together for my advan- 
tage. All my plans succeeded." True, they were 
well-laid plans. They were carefully thought out, 
and only those followed which promised immediate 
success. Few risks were taken. One object was kept 
in mind, the making of money. Expenses were kept 
at the lowest point possible, consistent with com- 
fortable living. Nothing was paid out for costly 
entertainments. No money was wasted on theatres 
or operas. With household expenses never exceed- 
ing two or three thousand dollars a year, and per- 
sonal expenses reduced to a minimum, it is not diffi- 
cult to see that with an income that often averaged 
three thousand dollars a week, money would accum- 
ulate rapidly. The gains were all invested with 
great care and were soon adding large sums to the 
yearly income. Opportunities for investment were 
constant and promising. Bank stock was pur- 
chased at its lowest price. This stock was never 
sold. Its dividends were invested in stock in other 
banks at or near par, and as this stock was con- 

59 



LIFE OF DR. D. K PEARSONS 

stantly rising in value, the gain on it alone in the 
course of a generation would produce a fortune. 
For many years houses and land in different parts 
of the city rapidly increased in value. The pine 
lands in Michigan yielded large returns. But with 
the same opportunities another man might not have 
obtained the wealth which seemed to flow so natur- 
ally into Dr. Pearsons' hands. His success was 
certainly due to the good Providence of God, but 
with that Providence he cooperated. He was care- 
ful to keep his character good. He looked after his 
health. He dressed with scrupulous care, though 
inexpensively. If his diet was simple, it was as 
nourishing as possible. He never failed to give him- 
self sufficient sleep, or to sleep where he would have 
an abundance of fresh air. Nor did he hesitate to 
spend money generously when necessary to secure 
more business. He advertised extensively. He 
gave money to churches, schools, libraries in order 
to persuade people to buy his land. He cultivated 
the acquaintance of leading men who lived in the 
region where his lands were situated. He took 
pains to have good stories to tell when he met farm- 
ers and business men out in the state. Whenever he 
made a sale of land he did his best to make the pur- 
chaser feel that he had obtained the worth of his 
money. In various ways he sought and succeeded 
in winning the confidence of people, so that when 
immigrants came from the East their friends would 
refer them to him as a man who would treat them 
honestly and befriend them to the best of his ability. 

60 



BUSINESS LIFE IN CHICAGO 

True, he held people to their agreements. They were 
expected to meet their obligations promptly, but 
no more was ever exacted than was due, and no land 
title which passed through his hands was found 
imperfect. 

He never complained. Disappointed at times he 
may have been, but of these disappointments he 
said nothing. He was cheerful in the homes where 
he stopped for a night for food. He was optimistic 
in the darkest period of our history. Were the times 
hard? He knew they would be better. He could 
give reasons for his belief, and often won many 
others over to his way of thinking. 

As a business man he trusted his own judgment. 
He did not ask advice of other men, however suc- 
cessful they may have been. Yet he did not over- 
look the fact that the methods they had pursued, 
might be the methods he ought to pursue. But he 
did not follow them, until after careful investiga- 
tion, he had convinced himself of their value. 
He did nothing hastily, yet at times his decisions 
seemed to be made on the spur of the moment. In 
reality they were the result of years of experience 
and study. Having made himself master of all 
the facts connected with the transactions he had in 
hand, he was, naturally, equal to any emergency 
that might arise with regard to any one of them. 
In his case there was not much chance for emer- 
gencies. He had prepared for them so carefully that 
they did not arise, or if now and then one met him, 
he was ready for it. He was careful not to be taken 

61 



LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS 

off his guard, or to be tempted into speech or action 
he might afterwards regret. In his later business 
years as the result of long experience, he could say 
almost immediately whether he would or would not 
consider a proposed trade. He learned to know 
men. His clerk used to say of him, that he would 
look a man through as soon as he came into his 
office, and that his judgment of him was nearly 
always correct. This gift was of value to him not 
only in his business life, but in that more strenuous 
period devoted to the distribution of his property. It 
enabled him to detect beggars who came to him as 
gentlemen, but whose object was personal gain. 
Not many of these beggars of the first rank were 
likely to call upon him a second time. His refusal 
to grant their request did not need to be repeated. 
He was equally quick to detect merit, and many a 
man who entered his office in fear went away with 
courage, for he had seen a man who sympathized 
with him, realized what burdens he was carrying 
and had promised him help. 

One of the rules which he followed and commended 
to a company of young men seeking his advice in his 
own language is as follows: "Keep cool, don't 
overload the stomach, breathe pure air, and lots of 
it, eat a vegetable diet, don't eat late suppers, go to 
bed early, don't fret, don't go where you will get 
excited, and when you grow older, don't forget to 
take a nap after dinner. Old age depends upon 
heredity, common sense and a good stomach." In 
a speech at Beloit in reply to the question, "How 

62 



BUSINESS LIFE IN CHICAGO 

did I make my money?" he said: "I'll tell you 
boys a secret. I did it by keeping my character 
clean. That's the only thing I had to start with, 
and it is the best thing any man can have. With- 
out it you are not worth a picayune . " In an address to 
the Sons of Vermont, at one of their annual dinners, 
he said, "It is not easy to give the secret of success. 
It cannot be described. It is inborn." And yet he 
was always careful to say that he never lost sight 
of his determination when in business life to make 
money, to put aside anything and everything that 
interfered with it; that he never spent money fool- 
ishly, or for anything not absolutely necessary, 
nothing for theatres or operas, or base-ball or foot- 
ball exhibitions, nothing for simple pleasure unless 
in travel; that he practised the utmost economy, was 
frugal from the first and intended to be until the end 
of his life, that he never did any business on borrowed 
capital or entered into speculations of any sort. He 
kept his resources so completely under his control 
that he could turn them into cash at an hour's 
notice. 

It is not strange that such men as he should suc- 
ceed. It would have been stranger if he had failed. 
For to clearness of vision, a cheerful and optimistic 
disposition, a judgment of men that rarely failed to 
be correct, native endowments of a very high order, 
a business ability that seemed to thrive on difficulties, 
and singleness of aim, there were added a persis- 
tency of purpose which nothing could turn aside, a 
willingness to endure hardship and continuance of 

63 



LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS 

toil which would have broken down almost any other 
man, a combination of qualities which won success 
almost as soon as they were brought into exercise 
and rendered failure well-nigh impossible. 



64 



VI 

BEGINNING OF A GREAT BENEVOLENT CAREER. 
GIFTS TO CHICAGO INSTITUTIONS. DECI- 
SION TO AID COLLEGES 



VI 

BEGINNING OF A GREAT BENEVOLENT CAREER. 
GIFTS TO CHICAGO INSTITUTIONS. DECI- 
SION TO AID COLLEGES 

PREVIOUS chapters have shown that Dr. 
Pearsons was looked upon as a generous man 
long before colleges became the chief object 
of his bounty. Until his removal to Hinsdale in 
1885, he was a steady attendant at the First Presby- 
terian Church, of which his wife was a member, one 
of its staunchest and most liberal supporters, and 
a willing contributor to its many charities. As has 
been said he was a teacher in its Railroad Mission, 
founded by Rev. Aratus Kent, in hearty sympathy 
with its work and ready always to bear his full 
share of its expenses. 

After his removal to Hinsdale in 1885, at a largely 
attended meeting of its Society, the church put on 
record its appreciation of the service he had rendered 
it while acting as Chairman of its Board of Trustees. 
It was through his initiative, by his personal efforts 
in connection with such men as the late Messrs. 
Sherwood and Swift and by his own gifts of more 
than ten thousand dollars that its debt was paid. 

67 



LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS 

The Resolution, which reads: "Resolved: that 
hearty thanks be given to Dr. D. K. Pearsons for his 
faithful and devoted service, wise counsel and liberal 
gifts, especially during the financial distress of this 
church," was unanimously adopted and with expres- 
sions of sorrow that he had found it necessary to 
remove from the city and establish his home in one 
of its suburbs. 

Interested from its organization in the work of 
the Y. M. C. A., to which from the first to the last 
he has given very large sums, in October, 1887, he 
turned over to its President, J. V. Far well, Jr., 
property valued at $30,000.00. In 1908 the Asso- 
ciation received from him $20,000.00 in cash and in 
1909 $20,000.00 more. For the LaSalle Street 
Building he gave $10,000.00. That the Association 
appreciates his interest in it, is shown in the follow- 
ing statement by its Secretary, L. Wilbur Messer. 

"Dr. Pearsons has made four substantial gifts to 
The Young Men's Christian Association of Chicago. 
His first gift was a piece of property on Cottage 
Grove Avenue, then valued at $30,000.00. In that 
period of the Association's history this gift was 
most significant in its amount, and in the recogni- 
tion by Dr. Pearsons of the need of permanent 
endowment for the future development of the Asso- 
ciation work. The amount realized by the sale of 
this property was invested in the endowment por- 
tion of the LaSalle Street Building. 

" The second gift of Dr. Pearsons was to the amount 
of $10,000.00 in cash for the LaSalle Street Building. 

68 



DECISION TO AID COLLEGES 

This additional gift was most timely in showing the 
continued interest of Dr. Pearsons in the welfare of 
the Association and in binding conditional sub- 
scriptions. 

"The third gift of Dr. Pearsons was the amount of 
$20,000.00, made in the early stage of the canvass 
for the Fiftieth Anniversary Million Dollar Fund. 
This fund was dependent on securing the larger 
portion of the substantial gifts from representative 
citizens. The generous cooperation of Dr. Pearsons 
assisted us in closing large conditional subscriptions 
and in securing the cooperation of many others. 

"The fourth gift was for the sum of $20,000.00 at 
the time of the twelve-day canvass for the comple- 
tion of the million dollar fund. The Association 
had raised $831,000.00 toward its million dollar 
fund in subscriptions from less than three hundred 
persons. The twelve-day canvass was then inaugu- 
rated to raise $350,000.00 which would not only com- 
plete the Anniversary Fund, but would make pos- 
sible the building improvements not contemplated 
when that fund was started. Toward the close of 
this campaign Dr. Pearsons really saved the situ- 
ation by this, his second subscription of $20,000.00, 
to the anniversary fund. This gift was the more 
significant in view of the fact that the Doctor had 
said that he would make no other gifts except to 
colleges which had already been included among 
his beneficiaries. The work of this Association so 
appealed to him, however, and his former interest 
having continued, he made his gift consistent by 



LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS 

stating that he had adopted The Young Men's 
Christian Association of Chicago as one of his 
family. 

"Even more significant than the gifts already men- 
tioned was the generous and spontaneous offer from 
Dr. Pearsons on the last day of the canvass that he 
would pay any amount that was needed at the close 
of that day to complete the fund of $350,000.00. 
The Association needed $18,000.00 at the time this 
offer was telephoned to our office, with only four 
hours to raise that amount. The public response 
was so prompt and generous, however, as to com- 
plete the fund without calling on Dr. Pearsons to 
make up any deficit. The gratitude of the Associa- 
tion was expressed at that time in a resolution, 
which was personally presented to Dr. Pearsons, at 
his home, by the President and the General Secre- 
tary of the Association. 

"This statement will show that Dr. Pearsons has 
been a most important factor in the broad develop- 
ment of the life of The Young Men's Christian Asso- 
ciation of Chicago and in the wise provision for 
adequate endowment to safeguard its many in- 
terests." 

The Resolution of which Mr. Messer writes, as 
passed by the officers and friends of the Y. M. C. A. 
and presented to Dr. Pearsons in person, is as follows : 

"The five hundred officers, members and friends 
of The Young Men's Christian Association who 
have successfully promoted the campaign for $350,- 
000.00 in twelve days, send hearty congratulations 

70 



DECISION TO AID COLLEGES 

and greetings to you as you approach your ninetieth 
birthday on Thursday of this week. 

"Your generous subscription of $20,000.00 at a 
critical point in the campaign, in addition to your 
former subscription of $20,000.00 for the anniver- 
sary fund, and your further offer by telephone this 
afternoon to make a further subscription of the 
amount needed to complete the fund at 6 p. m., 
have cheered every worker and have been largely 
responsible for the final success of the undertaking. 

" The Young Men's Christian Association is proud 
to be numbered with the many institutions whose 
work has been extended and strengthened by your 
generous benefactions. It is our sincere wish that 
you may enjoy many years of unmeasured happiness 
in realizing the results of your practical philan- 
thropy. " 

No hospital is better known in Chicago or has 
done better work than the Presbyterian. As already 
said this hospital grew out of the efforts of Dr. 
Pearsons in connection with those of Drs. E. A. 
Hamill and J. P. Ross. It was the personal gifts of 
Dr. Pearsons at the very beginning of the life of the 
hospital, and his personal interest in it and work for 
it that secured its early prominence and success. 
He was President of its Board of Managers from 
December, 1883 to April, 1884; from April, 1885 to 
April, 1889; from April, 1899 to December, 1900, 
about seven years in all. 

His gifts to the hospital as reported by its Super- 
intendent, Mr. Asa Bacon, have been as follows: 

71 



LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS 

August 31, 1885 $10,000.00 

January 20, 1887 5,000.00 

November 10, 1888 10,000 . 00 

January 24, 1889 5,000.00 

April 10, 1889 30,149 . 00 

April, 1907 5,000.00 

Other gifts were made from time to time of which no 
account is here made. Through his efforts, in 1888 
for example, the books show that at least $5,000.00 
came to the hospital. Many large gifts are traceable 
to his influence. As to the effect of his gifts and his 
personal interest reference may be made to the 
dedicatory address, dated April 22, 1889, of Dr. 
John Henry Barrows, then Pastor of the First Pres- 
byterian Church. His words are: "It would be 
unjust not to mention, even in his presence, the 
incalculable services which have been rendered by 
the gifts, the active interest, and the sleepless labor 
of him who for years has been the President of this 
institution, Dr. D. K. Pearsons. The debt which 
the hospital owes to him can never be fully under- 
stood, except by those who have so faithfully worked 
with him." 

Ernest A. Hamill, in his report to the Board of 
Managers, April 8, 1901, said: "Our esteemed 
President, Dr. Daniel K. Pearsons, retired Decem- 
ber 17, 1900, from the presidency of the Board of 
Managers, owing to the many demands made upon 
his time and strength by his philanthropic work. 
One of the hospital's earliest friends, Dr. Pearsons 
gave generously in money and encouragement when 

72 



DECISION TO AID COLLEGES 

both necessities came slowly, and for many years 
his interest in the hospital has been active and 
practical." That interest continued unbroken to 
the last days of his life, and was as deep as his inter- 
est in any one of the colleges he had aided. 

In the Historical Society, The Academy of Science 
and more recently in the Orchestra Association, he 
had an interest which found expression in substan- 
tial gifts. What a single gift has accomplished for 
the Art Institute we know from its highly hon- 
ored Director, Mr. W. M. R. French, who 
writes : 

"From the foundation of the Art Institute in 
1879, I had longed for a collection of Braun and 
Company's reproductions of standard works of art. 
I had a list of about 500 carefully prepared, hoping 
to be able to buy them. About 1892 an agent of 
Braun and Company visited Chicago, and I took 
him to Mr. Hutchinson. (Mr. Hutchinson has been 
one of the men who has put time, money and thought 
into the Institute, and done more than any other 
person, apart from the Director, to secure its suc- 
cess.) I remember the Artist, Mr. Childe Hassam, 
was here and went along with me to interpret the 
agent's French. Mr. Hutchinson promptly asked 
the agent to ascertain from his House at what price 
they would sell their whole publication, amounting 
to 16,000 or more autotypes. The Columbian Expo- 
sition was coming on, and the House of Braun and 
Company was anxious to have its works put before 
the people. The Art Institute Building was used for 

73 



LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS 

the World's Congress. The whole collection, I sup- 
pose, at the retail price, would be worth $40,000 or 
$50,000. The result of it all was that they offered 
to sell the whole collection, excepting a few which 
were virtually duplicates, or otherwise undesirable, 
for $15,000.00. The photographs we actually 
received numbered a little above 16,000. We have 
not added more than 500 since. Mr. Hutchinson 
went to Dr. Pearsons and proposed to him to pay 
for half the collection, the Art Institute to pay for 
the other half. To this Dr. Pearsons assented. The 
next day he came in and told Mr. Hutchinson that 
when he told his wife what he had done, she said he 
ought not to be doing things by halves that way; 
and he would pay for the whole. So the collection 
was named the 'Mrs. D. K. Pearsons Collection of 
Carbon Photographs.' It is the largest of its kind 
in America, the second being in the Public Library 
in Portland, Oregon, the third in the Athenaeum 
Library in Boston. In the Art Institute it forms a 
wonderful basis for the study of art. It is entirely 
accessible to students at all times, and is really open 
to the public on the free days of the Art Institute, 
Wednesday and Saturday. It has suffered little 
from its free use for sixteen or seventeen years. We 
always show it to our visitors as one of the remark- 
able features of the library." 

The gift was made in 1892 and was without con- 
ditions. This gift emphasizes a remark frequently 
made by Dr. Pearsons. "It is surprising how much 
good a little money will do if given wisely at the 

74 



DECISION TO AID COLLEGES 

right time and to persons who know how to use it 
for the benefit of others." 

In 1887 he conveyed property worth $50,- 
000.00 to the Trustees of the McCormick Theo- 
logical Seminary (Presbyterian), the income to be 
used as scholarships for needy young men prepar- 
ing themselves for the ministry. The President of 
this Seminary, Rev. Dr. James G. K. McClure, 
writes : 

"As to the gift made by Dr. Pearsons and his wife 
to the Scholarship Endowment Fund of the Mc- 
Cormick Theological Seminary, 'out of glad and 
willing hearts, in the hope that it will prove to the 
glory of God in the education of young men in the 
Gospel Ministry,' I cannot speak with too high appre- 
ciation. It came at a time when it was absolutely 
necessary for the continuance of the work of the 
Seminary. Without it there would have been no 
sufficient provisions for the needs of the students 
and the students would have been obliged either to 
give up studying for the ministry or to seek some 
other institution which could properly care for them. 
The income from this gift has been applied care- 
fully to the assistance of young men whose means 
are not sufficient to carry them through the Semi- 
nary course. The men who have been thus assisted 
have gone into every part of the world, living and 
preaching the gospel. I can well believe that no 
gift Dr. Pearsons has ever made tends to bring him 
larger comfort of heart than this gift to the Scholar- 



75 



LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS 

ship Fund on October 25th, 1887, of McCormick 
Theological Seminary." 

Two days later, October 27th, as a joint gift from 
himself and Mrs. Pearsons, he conveyed property 
valued at $20,000.00 to the officers of the Woman's 
Foreign Missionary Board of the Presbyterian 
Church of the Northwest, so much of the income as 
might be required to be set aside for the support of 
two women as missionaries in the fields under the 
care of this Board and the remainder to be used for 
current expenses. 

October 24, 1887, he invited Professors Fisk and 
Boardman, Curtiss and Scott of the Chicago Theo- 
logical Seminary (Congregational) to meet him in 
his office, and after asking a few questions and 
affirming his interest in the Seminary, he put into 
their hands deeds to seven houses, then renting for 
$4,000.00 a year and valued by experts at $50,000.00, 
the income to be used as scholarships for students 
in the Foreign Departments of the Seminary. 

Since that first gift, Dr. Pearsons has made other 
gifts amounting to more than $350,000.00, which, 
coming at critical periods and for special objects, 
have not only added to the efficiency of the Semi- 
nary, but, as Dr. G. S. F. Savage, for so many years 
its financial secretary, and one of its wisest leaders, 
and most devoted friends, says, saved it from extinc- 
tion. These gifts came to it when professors and 
directors and friends were despondent, and inspired 
new hopes in them, and stimulated them to renewed 
and successful efforts in its behalf. 

76 



DECISION TO AID COLLEGES 

In a statement concerning the results of these 
gifts to the Seminary, Dr. O. S. Davis, its President, 
writes : 

"It is somewhat difficult to measure by any con- 
crete standards the practical results of generous 
donations toward the endowment of an institution. 
The practical issues are seen in so many different 
ways that only the record of the entire service of the 
institution to civilization can adequately measure 
the result of those means by which such a service 
has been made possible. Therefore, since it is not 
too much to say that the entire service of Chicago 
Theological Seminary has depended essentially upon 
the gifts of Dr. Pearsons, the first result is seen in 
the total service of the Seminary to the Kingdom of 
God from the day when his first gift was received. 

There are, however, certain definite lines of serv- 
ice in which the gifts of Dr. Pearsons have borne 
peculiar fruit. Chicago Seminary has had under its 
instruction nearly two thousand students. Its 
unique contribution to the Kingdom and Church of 
Christ has been in the establishment of three Insti- 
tutes for the training of Germans, Norwegians and 
Swedes; and from these Institutes have been sent out 
almost five hundred men, who have gathered over 
three hundred and twenty-five churches of their 
own speech. There has been no other institution 
which has made an experiment of this kind, but 
Chicago Seminary has spent over a hundred thou- 
sand dollars in this enterprise. It is needless to say 
that the donations of Dr. Pearsons have rendered 

77 



LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS 

possible through their income the pursuit of this 
unique work. 

"In its regular departments, however, Chicago 
Seminary has furnished an opportunity for techni- 
cal training to the graduates of the colleges of the 
Central West, and has given them the privilege of 
studying in the city of Chicago, where there is to a 
pre-eminent degree the one especial field in which 
men may be adequately prepared for service in the 
interior states. There is a freedom and democracy 
in the cosmopolitan city of Chicago which is scarcely 
to be found elsewhere, and the permanence of Chi- 
cago Seminary in this field is essentially important 
to the life of our Congregational churches in the 
Middle West. While the service of our New Eng- 
land Seminaries to our Congregational churches 
has been efficient beyond any criticism, it is still 
true that a Seminary in Chicago is logically and 
essentially necessary to our Congregationalism. It 
is not too much to say that without the gifts of Dr. 
Pearsons the work of the Chicago Seminary could 
not have been successfully maintained and its future 
service could scarcely be anticipated." 

From 1887 to 1911 Dr. Pearsons' interest in the 
Seminary has continued. He has watched its work 
and its development carefully, and, as his last gift 
of $100,000.00 made without conditions shows, its 
welfare has been on his heart as that of one of his 
own children. Nor can anyone doubt that his con- 
ditional gifts have largely increased the constituency 
and friends of the Seminary. They were made at 

78 



DECISION TO AID COLLEGES 

critical periods in its history and in such a way as 
put courage and enthusiasm into the hearts of its 
professors and directors. 

A gift to the training school for young women as 
pastor's assistants of $25,000.00 has secured a home 
for teachers and students and through the affilia- 
tion of the school with the seminary, made it possible 
for the professors in the seminary to furnish, with- 
out cost, a large part of the instruction they require. 
During its short life it has already accomplished 
very much good and laid foundations for future 
service, the value of which can hardly be estimated. 

But no gifts that Dr. Pearsons has made have 
been more useful than those to the Chicago City 
Missionary Society. This Society was organized 
by the Congregational Churches of Chicago twenty- 
nine years ago as an agency through which the larger 
and more prosperous churches might aid those that 
were weak and establish churches and mission schools 
in places where they were needed. While aiding 
churches which gave promise of speedily or in course 
of a few years being able to care for themselves, its 
main efforts were from the first and have continued 
to be directed to purely mission fields to work with 
our foreign population, or with churches which, 
while doing earnest and aggressive work, give small 
promise of self-support. It was to the work in this 
needy field, with the poorer classes of our popula- 
tion, with laboring men and women, with the chil- 
dren of parents who had left their native land in the 
hope of bettering their condition, that the attention 

79 



LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS 

of Dr. and Mrs. Pearsons was called. With this 
kind of Christian service they were both in deep 
sympathy, and very early in the history of the Society 
they contributed liberally to its funds. An effort of 
the Society in 1904 to increase its endowment to 
$150,000 met his hearty approval, and he promised, 
on considering what had been accomplished and what 
might be accomplished with larger means at its dis- 
posal, to add to previous gifts enough to bring them 
up to $50,000.00 as soon as the friends of the Society 
would raise $100,000.00 more. The offer was grate- 
fully accepted and the money obtained. Two or three 
years ago Dr. Pearsons added another $50,000.00 to 
his gifts without any conditions, except that the 
work already carried on should be made more and 
more efficient, and that still greater care be taken to 
reach that vast class in the city which needs nothing 
so much as the Christian education imparted by 
churches, Sunday schools, Endeavor Societies and 
the agencies connected with them or growing out of 
them. Only the income of the somewhat more than 
$200,000.00 endowment fund of the Society can be 
used each year. But with this income grounds for 
new work can be secured, aid furnished in the erec- 
tion of buildings or in needed repairs, in the payment 
of taxes and for such enlargement of work already 
begun as otherwise would be impossible. To the 
invaluable aid furnished by Dr. Pearsons the officers, 
directors and friends of the Society have repeatedly 
given emphatic testimony. 

The honored and efficient Superintendent, who 

80 



DECISION TO AID COLLEGES 

has been with the Society from its organization, Dr. 
J. C. Armstrong, writes: "I am glad to bear testi- 
mony to the indebtedness of the Chicago City Mis- 
sionary Society to Dr. Daniel K. Pearsons. More 
than 25,000 members have been gathered into its 
churches in twenty-eight years, and there are now 
(November, 1910) in the Sunday schools it has 
aided and is sustaining more than 20,000 children 
and young people. Unborn generations will share 
in the benefits of Dr. Pearsons' princely gifts. He 
has made himself a great name among the benefac- 
tors of our fellow-men. His splendid insight and 
unfaltering purpose to help his fellow-men at the 
point where Christian education is sure to be of the 
greatest possible benefit, will be an example for 
years to come which men and women of wealth will 
certainly follow." 

It is doubtful if any gift he has ever made has 
been or will continue to be through the years to 
come more fruitful than the $100,000.00 thus far 
entrusted to the City Missionary Society. It will 
restrain crime, promote good works, encourage vir- 
tuous conduct and develop Christian character in 
circles which without it would hardly have been 
reached. 

These early gifts to institutions in or near Chicago 
stimulated and confirmed a purpose long cherished 
by Dr. Pearsons of retiring from business at the age 
of seventy and devoting the remaining years of his 
life to the giving away, or rather of investing, as he 
has preferred to call it, the fortune which thirty 
6 81 



LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS 

years of economy, strenuous effort and prudent use 
of early savings had brought him. He desired to be 
his own executor. He refused to be called benevo- 
lent, denied that he had any benevolence in his 
nature. He gave, so he affirmed, because he could 
not take his money with him beyond the grave, 
because he wished to invest it himself, and invest 
it where it would do good long after he had left the 
world. He also wanted the privilege of watching 
the outcome of his investments; and this privilege 
he has enjoyed to the full. 

At the outset he determined to be independent in 
his giving, to give as he himself and Mrs. Pearsons, 
his only and his constant adviser, should think best. 
Not a few people who felt that they knew better 
than its possessor where the money ought to go 
were at first inclined to call in question his wisdom. 
To criticisms for refusal to contribute to certain 
objects he replied: "If I choose to give away what 
I do not want, I rather think I have the right. I 
give where I have the largest satisfaction in the 
knowledge that it is doing good, instead of leaving 
my money to be quarrelled over when I am gone." 

Soon after he began his benefactions to colleges, 
he made it known that he was disposing of his prop- 
erty under a deep sense of responsibility to God. 
"Giving is my only occupation. I am working hard 
at it. I kept getting rich until I was seventy, and 
then I started to give away the fortune that had 
been placed in my hands. There is more responsi- 
bility in giving away money than in making it. I 

82 



DECISION TO AID COLLEGES 

am responsible for the just distribution of the great 
wealth to the Providence under which it came to 
me." In making these gifts he was influenced a 
very great deal by his sympathy with the laboring 
classes, with the boys and girls who are born into 
the families of working people. In announcing a gift 
of $50,000 to the Chicago City Missionary Society 
he made this the chief reason for the gift. He had 
studied its work, had seen how constantly and suc- 
cessfully its representatives had ministered to the 
poorer classes of the city, with what wisdom they 
were trying to give moral instruction to children 
who might otherwise be left to roam the streets, and 
foresaw the almost unlimited influence for good 
which this Society properly supported might exert. 
In deciding to devote the larger portion of his 
fortune to educational purposes he had in mind the 
needs of the country as a whole. These needs he 
believed would be more fully met by aiding the 
smaller colleges scattered over the country than by 
concentrating his gifts upon a few institutions here 
and there, or by increasing the endowment of some 
great eastern university. The smaller colleges, he 
saw, were training a large class of young people who 
could not afford the expense of an education in one 
of the prominent colleges of the East. This was a 
good reason, he thought, for aiding those colleges 
in the West and South which had proved their right 
to live, but which might find it difficult to survive 
without his help. " Common schools excepted," he 
said, after he had given the subject a great deal of 

83 



LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS 

study, "the so-called fresh- water college is the 
greatest educational institution in America." Hence 
his determination to use his fortune to develop these 
colleges, and so far as possible secure for them 
an adequate equipment. In these colleges, he clearly 
saw, were gathered the young people from whose 
ranks must come the future leaders of the country, 
in education, religion and patriotic service. Insen- 
sibly as the years passed, the students in these col- 
leges won a warm place in his heart. He began to 
look upon them as his own children and to consider 
how he could treat them as such. His thought finds 
expression in one of his addresses in the following 
words: "I've got the smartest set of boys in the 
world. Flaxen-haired boys from the sod houses of 
the mountains and the prairie, poor boys who will 
appreciate an education because they know how 
hard it is to get. They can't go down east to college 
and I am trying to build up colleges where they can 
go. My boys are the very smartest." For girls 
when occasion called for it, he had an equally strong 
word. 

With all his love for the small college and his 
conviction that in certain sections of the country 
new colleges should be established, he has never 
founded a college or suffered one to be called after 
his name. He felt, indeed, that the country has too 
many colleges, that no inconsiderable number of 
them would do well to become academies. He was 
struck by the fact that too many of the states had 
become "college graveyards." Hence the rule from 

84 



DECISION TO AID COLLEGES 

which there was no deviation, to promise no aid to 
an institution till either he himself or those in whose 
wisdom and experience he had full confidence, had 
thoroughly investigated its condition. The location 
of the college, its proximity to other colleges, the 
character of the work done, the standing of the 
faculty, the promise of future growth, were always 
carefully considered. 

Decision to aid, or to refuse aid, was slowly reached, 
but once made, it was rarely reversed. In order to 
test the real strength of a college, the Doctor almost 
always made his gifts conditional. To live and be 
useful a college must have a constituency to which 
whenever need for increased funds arises, it may 
appeal. To obtain his gifts the friends of a college 
by a certain date must therefore themselves furnish 
a certain sum of money, a sum large enough in gen- 
eral to tax their liberality and determine their loyalty 
to the institution which had asked assistance. Diffi- 
cult as these conditions have sometimes been to 
meet, experience has proved their wisdom, for in 
addition to the money received in its campaigns for 
funds the college has created or deepened an interest 
in its affairs in many communities, which is of more 
value, if the future be considered, than the aid 
immediately obtained. 



85 



VII 

CONDITION OF THE DENOMINATIONAL COL- 
LEGES WHEN DR. PEARSONS MADE HIS 
FIRST GIFTS TO THEM. PRINCIPLES UPON 
WHICH THESE GIFTS HAVE BEEN MADE 



VII 

CONDITION OF THE DENOMINATIONAL COL- 
LEGES WHEN DR. PEARSONS MADE HIS 
FIRST GIFTS TO THEM. PRINCIPLES UPON 
WHICH THESE GIFTS HAVE BEEN MADE 

IT IS within the truth to say that during the 
eighties, the decade from 1880 to 1890, nearly all 
the colleges in the West and South which had 
been founded by the various Christian denominations 
were financially weak. If a few of the elder of these 
colleges came to the end of the year without debt, it 
was rarely done without aid from the churches or 
wealthy friends. For the majority of these denomina- 
tional institutions the close of the year increased the 
burden resting upon them at its beginning. Debts 
were steadily becoming larger. Nor was there any 
prospect that means would be found for their payment. 
To a few of these small Christian colleges, compara- 
tively large gifts had come, from broad-minded men of 
wealth; Congregationalists had been favored by Mrs. 
Valeria Stone, in the distribution of the fortune which 
her husband's death placed at her disposal. Yet even 
from the most promising point of view the situation 
was discouraging. As the decade drew to an end, 



LIFE OF DR. D. K PEARSONS 

conditions in many instances were becoming more 
and more desperate. The rate of interest on endow- 
ments was steadily declining. Many of the older 
professors in the colleges had passed their prime. 
There was money at command neither for their 
retirement on well-earned pensions, nor for the sup- 
port of younger men to take their places. Nor did 
trustees see any way to provide for those new pro- 
fessorships which the times called for, or for the labo- 
ratories without which science could not be success- 
fully taught. 

To make matters worse for the small college, the 
state, under the provisions of the Morrill Act had 
begun to lay the foundations of those universities 
which have had such rapid growth, have done such 
admirable work, and which now occupy such a prom- 
inent place in the educational world. How could an 
institution with an endowment rarely exceeding two 
hundred thousand dollars, more frequently with less 
than that amount, with inadequate buildings, with 
little scientific apparatus, with few or no men in the 
faculty able to teach science had facilities for teach- 
ing it been present, compete with institutions having 
the wealth of a state behind them, and ungrudgingly 
placed at their disposal ? The wonder is that the small 
college did not at once give up in despair. Many of 
the friends of the state institution said that the small 
college had outlived its usefulness, that as the high 
school was so generally taking the place of the acad- 
emy, or of privately endowed preparatory schools, 
it might wisely be encouraged to extend its course of 

90 



DENOMINATIONAL COLLEGES 

study so as to embrace subjects usually taught in 
the freshman and sophomore years in college and then 
send the young men and the young women thus 
trained directly to the state university. Or if these 
smaller colleges are not at once given up, let them 
voluntarily cease to call themselves colleges, and take 
the rank of secondary schools and do such work as 
may be called for by those students to whom the high 
school in the cities and larger towns is not accessible. 
It is not strange that to many of its warmest 
friends the outlook for the small college seemed des- 
perate. They saw clearly that even if Christian, 
and favored by the denomination whose name it bore 
it would not long survive, unless well endowed, and 
so well equipped with facilities for elementary scien- 
tific study at least, as to be able to furnish as good 
or even better instruction than the state university. 
To be sure professors in the small college would be 
brought into closer relations with the student than 
would be possible in the larger institution. More 
emphasis would be laid on morals and Christian 
character in the small college than in the university. 
But it was replied, there are no charges for tuition in 
the state universities. Nor is there any prejudice 
there against religion. The views of the different 
denominations are tolerated, so that there is no good 
reason why Christian character should not be culti- 
vated in the larger as well as in the smaller school. 
Many were ready to go further and demand the 
extinction of the small college altogether. They 
said it would be a waste of funds to contribute to its 

91 



LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS 

support. Nor can there be any doubt of the sincer- 
ity with which many of these objections to the 
continued life of the institution which had done so 
much for the country and had filled such a prominent 
place in the intellectual development of the West 
and the South were brought forward. A new day had 
come. With it had come a demand for a new educa- 
tion, for a kind of training along practical lines which 
the college of the earlier time had overlooked or had 
failed to see. Young people must be prepared for 
their life work. Theory must give place to reality; 
idealism to the pressure of practical life. 

Before making his first gift to a Christian college 
Dr. Pearsons saw three things clearly : First that the 
small Christian denominational college had filled 
and was filling a place in our educational system as 
important to the welfare of the country as the common 
school. This conviction had come to him as the 
result of long-continued observation and careful 
study. He saw, further, that to do its work well this 
small college must be amply endowed and furnished 
with such facilities in the way of buildings and equip- 
ment as the education and training it was seeking 
to give might demand. He saw also that in order to 
save the college from future disaster, its endowment 
must be obtained in such a way as to create for it a 
constituency of graduates and lovers of learning upon 
which it could depend in the future. Hence, the con- 
ditions upon which he made his offers of help. If at 
the beginning they seemed onerous, it soon became 
apparent that in meeting them the college was making 

92 



DENOMINATIONAL COLLEGES 

for itself more permanent gains than in securing the 
money it sought. 

Probably even Dr. Pearsons did not foresee the 
significance and full extent of the service he would 
render in his deliberate effort to save the small 
Christian college from extinction. 

With an accurate knowledge of the educational 
situation at the end of the eighties, and in the begin- 
ning of the nineties, he began that careful investiga- 
tion of the condition of the colleges, seminaries and 
high schools in the different states of the Union and 
that special study either in person or through trusted 
agents of each particular institution desiring aid, 
which here marked his career as the founder of the 
Christian college. Comparatively few of the colleges 
applying to him for help received it. He gave only 
to institutions which had in them the promise of life 
and growth, and were so situated as through their stu- 
dents to minister to a wide extent of territory. He 
was careful not to give to any large number of colleges 
in any single state. A glance at the list at the end of 
Chapter XV indicates the location of the schools, sem- 
inaries and colleges which have been aided by him, 
and shows how large a portion of the country in the 
distribution of his fortune he has sought to reach. 

When satisfied that his money would be wisely 
used and would bring swift return, no man has ever 
been more ready to give than he. Thus he writes 
the Eaton Brothers, who were trying to establish an 
institution for higher education and for practical 
training in Montana. "I have been waiting for 



LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS 

Montana for years: if I give $25,000.00 toward an 
endowment for $100,000.00, can you secure $75,- 
000.00? " To this question an affirmative answer was 
returned and the money soon obtained. Such per- 
sons as Mrs. Cyrus McCormick of Chicago, the late 
John H. Converse of Philadelphia, F. August Heinze 
of Pittsburgh, Senator Clark of Montana, Andrew 
Carnegie of New York, and many others seemed to 
take delight in furnishing it. The college has made 
rapid strides, has a large and promising body of 
students, several good buildings, a fine faculty, a 
growing endowment and a bright outlook for the 
future. It is under the care of the Presbyterians, but 
is free from anything like sectarianism. It is not 
strange that in following the mission of that gift of 
$25,000.00 Dr. Pearsons has had great pleasure. 

It would be surprising if he had not sometimes been 
disappointed in the results of his giving. "The 
greatest sorrow, I recall," he once said, "was when I 
advanced a large amount of money to put a brilliant 
young man through college. He promised to pay 
me back, in fact, gave me his note. But I found 
that he never intended to pay me. It doesn't pay 
to help young men through college that way. I have 
tried it dozens of times. I help them through college 
with my money, but they do not pay me back; they 
don't try to pay. It is little to me, but it is bad for 
them. It is a calamity. It destroys the initiative. 
The boy or girl who is determined to get through 
college cannot be restrained by any difficulty. Such 
people will work their way through untold hardships." 

94 



DENOMINATIONAL COLLEGES 

Let a leaf be taken out of his own experience. In re- 
counting it he says: "For five years I boarded myself, 
baked my own Johnnie cake, cooked my own pota- 
toes, fried my own meat. For five years I depended 
upon myself entirely and during that time I waxed 
fat in the doing of it, and was well and hearty at all 
times." 

The kind of personal aid the Doctor enjoyed giv- 
ing is indicated in words uttered in the parlor of 
his house in Hinsdale. "Up-stairs in my sitting- 
room are two young girls from Berea. They came 
here last week, and I am paying them good wages 
to do my housework. Two others who had earned 
$150.00 each, left here a few days ago to go back and 
finish out their course at the college. When the two 
that are here have earned enough, they will return 
also, and two others will come to take their places. 
That's the kind of help I believe in giving. It lifts 
up. It lets the sun shine into my own heart and 
theirs too, and it is sending out into the world men 
and women who will take rank with the best of us." 
It was indeed a rare privilege to live in a home like that 
of Dr. Pearsons and to be under the influence of a 
woman like Mrs. Pearsons, who spared no pains to 
give such instruction in housekeeping as was needed 
and who in every way took the place of a mother to 
the girls who lived with her, and in her quiet and 
refined way imparted to them a goodly share of her 
own beautiful character. 

And yet the Doctor could say and say it truth- 
fully: "I do not believe in charity. It destroys self- 

95 



LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS 

respect and does no good. My principle is to give 
other people an opportunity. I have hundreds of 
applications for mere charity, but I pay no attention 
to them. My work is merely a business proposition. 
It is the investment out of which I get the best 
returns." This statement was made when the Doctor 
was eighty-five years of age. For this reason he was 
never willing to be called a benevolent man. He gave, 
he said, as an investment whose returns were to be 
looked for in the moral and intellectual training of 
poor young men and women. 

"Benevolent? Do you call me benevolent? 
Look at me. I am the most close-fisted, economical 
man you ever set eyes on. I never wasted twenty dol- 
lars in my life. I never went to a theatre but once 
in my life, and then I was ashamed of myself. I 
never went to a horse race, nor a base-ball game, nor 
a foot-ball game. I live simply, frugally. I shall 
five longer and better and more happily by living 
simply. And if I choose to give away what I do 
not want, I rather think I have the right. I give 
where I have the largest satisfaction in the knowl- 
edge that it is doing good, instead of leaving my 
money to be quarrelled over when I am dead. Do 
you call that benevolence?" A great many would, 
and taking all things into account, would not be far 
out of the way in doing so. At any rate, the more 
men there are who imitate Dr. Pearsons in the way he 
has taken to settle his own estate, the better will it be 
for the world. On his eightieth birthday he said, 
"I believe my plan of bestowing what I have to give 

96 



DENOMINATIONAL COLLEGES 

before my death will be adopted by those who have 
money to give. It is the simplest and best way. I 
flatter myself that I was the first to commence the 
plan. Anyway I have found it the best method, 
and I am satisfied." 

In the distribution of his fortune the Doctor has 
displayed the same remarkable business ability and 
self-restraint which were so prominent in his business 
life and contributed so much to his success. He did 
not undertake to meet all the demands, which appar- 
ently with reason might be made upon him. As a 
rule he gave little heed to many of them. He 
knew what he could do, and to the doing of that 
one thing he confined his thought. "When I began 
this enterprise of giving away money, I made up 
my mind that I would have but one string to my 
bow. I said to myself that the churches and the socie- 
ties should care for their own. For my part I would 
save souls by developing brains. This is my text." 
To this rule Dr. Pearsons invariably adhered. Ap- 
peals to break away from it did no good. Temp- 
tations to do so, to which many a man would have 
yielded, he steadily resisted. In this way he was 
able to continue his gifts through a period of more 
than twenty-two years, and in every instance to 
put his money where he had ample reason to believe 
it would do the most good. Where he knew others 
would help, or had abundant means for doing so, 
he declined to give. Where personal interests were 
chiefly concerned, or institutions were in rivalry 
with one another, he declined aid. 
7 97 



VIII 
GIFTS TO ILLINOIS INSTITUTIONS 



VIII 

GIFTS TO ILLINOIS INSTITUTIONS 

FOR some time before he had begun to make 
the distribution of his fortune the business 
of his life, Dr. Pearsons built four houses, 
and turned them over to the Woman's Educa- 
tional Aid Association of Evanston for the sup- 
port of young women who were seeking an educa- 
tion at the Northwestern University. Before doing 
this, the Doctor had paid for the support of seven 
young girls, but had tired of providing the money 
in installments every year, and as he had discov- 
ered, as he thought, the ability of the members of 
the Association to manage property entrusted to 
them, he proposed at first to build two houses, 
provided the site could be secured and then two more, 
the women to collect the rent, keep the houses in 
good repair and out of the profits meet the expenses 
of as many young women as possible. The plan 
was entirely successful, and in every way satisfac- 
tory. Many years afterwards representatives of 
this association came to him for further aid and as 
one of the reasons for their appeal, gave the history 
of some of the more than one hundred girls who had 

101 



LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS 

been aided through the income from his previous 
gifts. Surprised at the story, deeply interested in 
it, he replied that he thought he was receiving credit 
which did not belong to him, as he had no recollec- 
tion of having made any gift to the women of Evans- 
ton. They said they could not be mistaken, and 
left the Doctor with a promise from him that he would 
consider their appeal. After a careful search through 
note-books long before laid aside, entries were found 
here and there referring to houses in Evanston, built 
for the Woman's Education Aid Association. It 
was not difficult to persuade him to spend thirty 
thousand dollars more for a Hall, which he named 
Chapin Hall, after Miss Julia A. Chapin, the sister 
of Mrs. Pearsons. This Hall is always full and has 
been of great service in furnishing a home to young 
women who find it necessary to economize to obtain 
an education. The Doctor was present at the dedi- 
cation of the building and was greatly pleased with 
its appearance, and its promise of usefulness. The 
motto of the Association: 

"Opportunity for service is our greatest blessing, 
and to improve that opportunity will make for our 
best development," is a motto whose meaning Dr. 
Pearsons has himself strikingly illustrated. 

In 1889 Dr. Pearsons gave Lake Forest Univer- 
sity the sum of $100,000.00 on condition that $400,- 
000.00 more be raised, as an endowment, and that 
one half of the money he gave should be used as a 
loan fund for needy students, no one of them to re- 
ceive more than $100.00 a year, and the whole to be 

102 



GIFTS TO ILLINOIS INSTITUTIONS 

paid back within a reasonable time after graduation. 
The remainder of the gift was to be set aside for the 
support of a professorhip. That loan fund increased 
by gifts to other institutions to about $150,000.00, 
has produced very gratifying results. Not many 
young men have failed to meet their obligations, and 
as a small interest has been charged, the fund has 
steadily increased. The suggestion of such a fund 
came to Dr. Pearsons from his own experience as a 
medical student, when a small loan enabled him to 
graduate. 

The prominence of this University, now called 
Lake Forest College, justifies the taking of space 
to present in full a report of the effect of Dr. Pearsons' 
gifts as made by Dr. J. G. R. McClure, then its Pres- 
ident. This account shows what these gifts have 
done for other colleges of the country, as well as Lake 
Forest, not only in the amount they have added to 
their funds, but in bringing to them other and larger 
gifts. Dr. McClure writes: 

"Gifts of Dr. D. K. Pearsons to Lake Forest 
University. 

M 1889. $100,000.00. Property Endowment, consist- 
ing of six brick and stone houses, No's 
1215, 1217, 1219, 1221, 1223, and 1225 
North State Street, and a six apartment 
flat building, No's 5, 7, and 9 Scott Street, 
Chicago. Lake Forest University still 
owns this property intact and in good 
condition. 

103 



LIFE OF DR. D. K PEARSONS 

"1901. $25,000.00 Cash. Incorporated with the per- 
manent endowment of Lake Forest Uni- 
versity. 

"Conditions attached to the gift of $100,000.00 in 

1889: 

"I. That half the amount be used for a foundation 
of a Professorship of Political Economy and Social 
Science, and the income from the other half be loaned 
to students needing aid in their collegiate course, at 
3% interest, the total loans for one year not to exceed 
$3,000.00. These conditions have been met: First, 
in the establishment, by action of the Trustees of 
Lake Forest University on June 25, 1889, of the 
*D. K. Pearsons Chair of Political and Social 
Science' ; 

" Second : in the continuous operation since 1889 of 
the Pearsons 'Loan Fund,' from which loans have 
been granted to worthy students in sums not exceed- 
ing $100 for one student in any year. 

" II. That a total of $400,000.00 new endowment be 
raised, in addition to Dr. Pearsons' gift. This con- 
dition was also met. 

" The effects produced by this gift were, immediately, 
to assure the success of the first great effort for the 
permanent endowment of Lake Forest University; 
and, subsequently, to endow the chair held by Pro- 
fessor John J. Halsey, who has given the longest and 
most distinguished service on the Faculty of Lake 
Forest College in its history; and to aid 252 worthy 
students from 1889 to 1910 in the gaining of an edu- 

104 



GIFTS TO ILLINOIS INSTITUTIONS 

cation. Up to September 30, 1910, these students 
had borrowed a total of $40,439.50 from the income 
of the Pearsons Fund, and repaid $18,378.20 of prin- 
cipal and $6,294.19 of interest. Loans to the amount 
of $21,986.30 (one note only surrendered) are still 
outstanding, in the form of notes, upon which interest 
is being paid. During the twenty years of the opera- 
tion of the Pearsons Loan Fund, no application from 
a worthy student for aid has ever been refused. The 
maximum amount loaned in one year was $2,750.00. 
Condition attached to the gift of $25,000.00 in 1911: 

"That a total of $100,000.00 of new endowment 
be raised in addition to the gift. This condition 
was met. 

"The effect of this gift was to stimulate the friends 
of Lake Forest to the completion of an important 
addition to the permanent endowment." 

It should here be said that this gift of $25,000.00 
on condition that $100,000.00 more be raised was 
promised to Dr. McClure, personally, and that the 
sum was secured almost entirely by his personal 
solicitation. "A happier man than he," he writes, 
"when the sum required was subscribed, has never 
been known." It was this addition of $125,000.00 
to the endowment of Lake Forest, which secured 
permanency to its life and made possible the develop- 
ments which followed. 

A very timely gift of $20,000.00 was made to the 
Grand Prairie Seminary, Onarga, Illinois, in 1900. 
The Honorable W. A. Rankin had offered $25,000.00 
for endowment provided $100,000.00 were obtained. 

105 



LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS 

President Frost says that undoubtedly the effort 
would have failed but for Dr. Pearsons' gift. That 
endowment the President thinks was "the saving of 
the school for larger usefulness. It is quite a question 
whether it would have been open for work today had 
not that endowment been obtained. At present the 
school has an endowment of nearly a quarter of a 
million in sight, and bids fair to become a permanent 
institution for secondary work." This Seminary is 
one of the best Methodist Schools in the State. 

Illinois College has received $50,000.00 from Dr. 
Pearsons. Some of the friends of the college thought 
the conditions upon which the gift was secured were 
rather severe, but they admit that the money-raising 
campaign enlarged its constituency. President Ram- 
melskamp is sure that "Dr. Pearsons has done a 
great work for the small colleges. He was a pioneer 
in the movement in favor of them. No man did more 
to combat the notion that the day of the small college 
was over than Dr. Pearsons. His gifts aided the 
colleges and at the same time drew public attention 
to the work they were doing and to the important 
place they fill in our system of education.' ' 

Dr. John F. Harmon, President of McKendree 
College (Methodist) at Lebanon, Illinois, declares 
that he has no language at command to set forth the 
service which Dr. Pearsons has rendered that insti- 
tution. "Founded in 1828, and therefore one of the 
oldest colleges in the State, until Dr. Pearsons came 
to the rescue, it struggled along with great difficulty, 
wholly unable to rise to her opportunities, in spite 

106 



GIFTS TO ILLINOIS INSTITUTIONS 

of the fact that it has graduated men of national 
fame." 

September 20, 1905, Dr. Pearsons gave the college 
$20,000.00, which, with $80,000.00 secured as a 
condition of receiving this sum of money, made an 
endowment of $100,000.00. That was the beginning 
of a new day for the college. Many new friends were 
found, and new hopes were inspired. July 23, 1906, 
Dr. Pearsons wrote: "I will give you $10,000.00 as 
soon as you get $75,000.00. You need a dormitory 
and also a building for poor boys and girls to board 
themselves." The college failed to raise the money 
within the year allowed, but in October, 1909, the 
offer was renewed and over $90,000.00 were obtained, 
so that April 10, 1910, the Doctor sent $10,000.00 to 
the President of the College. Other friends added a 
little later, $3,000.00 more, so that three modern 
up-to-date brick buildings are now standing on the 
campus. Governor Deneen, by his personal gifts 
has added twenty acres to the campus, and a St. 
Louis friend has added six acres more for field sports. 
With several new buildings, and the old ones reno- 
vated, the college is now enjoying an era of great pros- 
perity. A spirit of enthusiasm unlike any previously 
existing is showing itself among the students, whose 
numbers have been greatly increased. A finance 
committee, of which Governor Deneen is Chair- 
man, has been organized in every county in the South- 
ern section of the State, in order to obtain still more 
money. But the President writes, — "Dr. Pearsons 
has saved the college. The good which he has done 

107 



LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS 

in helping McKendree will last through the ages. 
We do not know how to thank him enough. His 
gift was made at the right time and under conditions 
which could be met, but which called for an amount of 
effort and personal sacrifice which endeared the col- 
lege to its old friends, and created for it a multitude 
of new friends." 

To this College the Doctor added, in response 
to a request from Governor Deneen, a gift of ten 
thousand dollars just before his ninety-first birth- 
day. 

The proposal to give Knox College $50,000.00 in 
1889 marks the change which afterwards took place 
in the conditions made in this one of the earliest 
gifts to the college and those which followed in later 
years. The proposal was read by Dr. Robert W. 
Patterson, one of the Trustees of the college and for 
more than a generation Pastor of the Second Presby- 
terian Church of Chicago. Evidently the proposal 
was presented in language which indicated a desire 
to preserve the denominational character of the 
college. The proposal read as follows: 

" Chicago, Illinois, May 27, 1889. 
"To the Trustees of Knox College, 

Galesburg, Illinois. 
"I intend to give an income-paying property in 
Chicago, valued at $50,000.00, to your Knox College, 
the income to be used: 

"First: In endowing a professorship in Latin or 
some other. 

. 108 



GIFTS TO ILLINOIS INSTITUTIONS 

"Second: To furnish a fund to be loaned to poor 
and worthy students at the rate of One Hundred Dol- 
lars a year during the regular classical course of four 
years at three per cent interest annually, no student 
to receive help unless he pursues a regular college 
course. 

"It is herein provided, however, that the following 
conditions must be strictly observed and fulfilled by 
the Trustees of Knox College, and that in case they 
are not observed and fulfilled, the property aforesaid, 
or the avails from the sale thereof, shall revert to the 
donor, his heirs or assigns, and shall no longer be 
held or in any manner controlled by said Board of 
Trustees, to wit: 

" 1st : Not less than two-thirds of said Trustees shall 
be members of some evangelical church or churches. 

" 2nd : The Board shall embrace a number of mem- 
bers of the Presbyterian Church in the United States 
of America, at least equal to that of any one denomi- 
nation connected with it, excepting in the case of 
vacancies occurring in said number by death, removal 
from the State or other cause, which vacancies must 
be filled so as to meet the requirements of this condi- 
tion at or before the next annual meeting of the Board 
after such vacancies have become known to the 
Board. 

"3rd: Neither of the foregoing conditions shall be 
changed without the written consent and approval 
of at least two-thirds of the members of the Board. 

" 4th : Before the actual conveyance of the property 
aforesaid to the Board of Trustees of Knox College 

109 



LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS 

by the donor, the Board shall at a regular meeting 
signify its acceptance of the property on the condi- 
tions herein defined and approved, and shall cause 
this acceptance with the conditions to be placed on 
its permanent records. 

Daniel K. Pearsons. 
"Addendum. 

In case any portion of said income should not be 
desired by the students on the terms aforesaid, the 
Trustees may apply same for any year in the purchase 
of additional apparatus, or for the enlargement of the 
college library, but in no case shall this be used for 
other purposes if it is needed by promising students. 

Daniel K. Pearsons." 

The proposition of Dr. Pearsons was presented to 
the Board at its annual meeting June 11, 1889, and 
the following resolution was passed with reference 
to it: 

"Be it resolved, by the Board of Trustees of Knox 
College in regular annual session assembled: 

"First, that the gift of Dr. Daniel K. Pearsons of 
Chicago, Illinois, contained in his proposition of 
May 27, 1889, be and the same is hereby accepted 
on the terms and conditions therein contained, and 

"Second, that the Board unanimously express to 
the generous donor of this most timely gift their 
heartfelt thanks and high appreciation of the gift 
and the giver; 

"Third, that these resolutions be spread upon the 
records of the Board. 

110 



GIFTS TO ILLINOIS INSTITUTIONS 

"On motion the resolutions were unanimously 
adopted." 

President McClelland writes that so far as the 
records show, no conditions requiring a contingent 
to be raised were attached to this offer. 

June 9, 1892, the minutes show the reception of an 
additional proposition from Dr. Pearsons. "The 
Board of Trustees had met on the platform to listen 
to the closing exercises of the graduating classes, 
and the exercises having been satisfactory, the de- 
grees were conferred as voted. Dr. D. K. Pearsons 
of Chicago was present and made a written proposi- 
tion to endow Knox College with Fifty Thousand 
Dollars in Chicago Real Estate, providing Knox 
College raises Two Hundred Thousand Dollars ($200,- 
000.00) additional to go with it, and he gives the 
College two years to secure the $200,000.00. The 
proposition was received with cheers, and it was voted : 

" ' Resolved that the noble gift of $50,000.00 tendered 
by Dr. D. K. Pearsons of Chicago, Illinois, be and is 
hereby accepted with sincere thanks and with feelings 
of profound gratitude, and that we hereby pledge 
our utmost efforts to the complete fulfillment of 
every condition of his offer.' " 

Owing to the financial conditions prevailing in the 
country, it was found impossible to meet these con- 
ditions. The offer was renewed and the time ex- 
tended, and when one hundred thousand dollars had 
been obtained Dr. Pearsons gave the college twenty- 
five thousand dollars, thus making his gifts to it 
seventy-five thousand dollars in all. 

Ill 



LIFE OF DR. D. K PEARSONS 

"It is hard to see," writes the President, "how the 
Institution could have maintained itself, but for the 
timely and generous assistance which Dr. Pearsons 
gave it." 

To Knox as to many other colleges, the offers he 
made furnished the impulse needed to encourage 
Trustees and Professors to put forth the effort re- 
quired to increase the endowment, and when the 
money was obtained, they felt that the college not 
only had friends, whose generosity it had not fully 
appreciated, but that they were under a new and 
greater obligation than ever to make the college 
worthy of the support of the men and women who 
had come to its rescue. 

Several deserving colleges in the State have failed 
to receive aid from the Doctor, not because he did 
not recognize their claims for consideration, but 
because he had determined to give aid to only two 
colleges in a state. Having made an exception of 
Illinois, and aided five colleges, one secondary school, 
and two Theological Seminaries within its bounds, 
he felt that in justice to other states he could not 
extend the list. His example, however, has led others 
to take some of these needy colleges on their hearts 
and to exert themselves successfully to procure the 
funds which have enlarged their endowment and 
increased their efficiency. 



112 




IX 



GIFTS FOR INSTITUTIONS EAST OF CHICAGO 



IX 

GIFTS FOR INSTITUTIONS EAST OF CHICAGO 

WHEN Dr. Pearsons began his gifts to colleges 
he had decided to confine them to schools 
and colleges in Illinois, or in states west 
of it. He felt that the East was able to care for 
itself, and that his mission was to provide, so 
far as his means would permit, for those centers of 
learning which, having sprung up in a new country, 
had been unable to establish themselves upon a self- 
supporting basis. For several years he remained 
firm in his decision to give no money to any insti- 
tution east of Chicago, but appeals from points in 
Michigan, Ohio, Massachusetts and Vermont became 
so pressing that he could not refuse to consider them. 

Olivet College, Michigan 

Olivet College is the only Congregational college 
in Michigan. From the pine forests of the state he 
had obtained a goodly portion of his fortune. Presi- 
dent Sperry, then at the head of Olivet College, 
asked him if having taken so much money away from 
Michigan he did not feel that he would be justified 

115 



LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS 

in sending a little of it back to help in the endowment 
of one of its prosperous, yet very needy colleges. 
After studying the situation carefully, the location of 
the college, its relation to other institutions of similar 
grade in the state, the number and character of its 
students, the ability and self-denying work of its 
faculty, he saw clearly that it would be quite in 
accordance with his original plan of distributing his 
fortune where it would do the most good to aid in the 
strenuous effort the college was making to add $100,- 
000.00 to its modest endowment. Hence his pledge 
of $25,000.00, provided $75,000.00 more were secured 
within a year. The effort was successful and the col- 
lege placed on its feet. In reference to this gift from 
Dr. Pearsons, President Lancaster, under date of 
November 15, 1910, writes: "the money was invested 
as an endowment fund and has benefited us to 
the amount of six per cent on that amount since he 
gave it, and will continue to do so for all time, the 
rate of interest only changing possibly. The college 
could not exist without the hundred thousand dollar 
endowment, which was completed at that time. 
It means, then, that Dr. Pearsons practically saved 
the life of the institution." 

Olivet has grown steadily, and although a small 
college, and connected with a denomination, it has 
shown that notwithstanding the overpowering influ- 
ence of the University of Michigan, there is a demand 
for its work and for other colleges of similar standing 
in the state. Olivet has always been an earnestly 
Christian, but never a sectarian college. It has main- 

116 



GIFTS FOR INSTITUTIONS 

tained a high standard of scholarship, has sought 
to develop character in its students, and has been 
content to remain and fill the place of a small college. 

Marietta College, Ohio 

It was with more than usual difficulty that Dr. 
Pearsons convinced himself that he ought to give 
$25,000.00 to Marietta College. Why should one of 
the oldest colleges in the rich state of Ohio come to him 
for assistance? A college with such a number of 
distinguished men on its list of graduates, and with 
history running back almost to the settlement of the 
little city whose name it bears, ought, it seemed to 
him, to care for itself. Nor did he look favorably on 
the fact that it was in debt, had in fact rarely closed 
a year without adding to its deficit. But at last, 
considering its relation to Western Virginia, and to 
the region south of the Ohio River, and its own 
local constituency, and recalling the fact that here 
one of the first settlements, if not the very first settle- 
ment was made in that great tract of land conse- 
crated to liberty, education and religion, under the 
ordinance of 1787, and honoring the memory of Dr. 
Israel W. Andrews, so long at the head of the college, 
he promised $25,000.00, if its friends would pay 
all its debts and raise $75,000.00 additional. That 
gift was magical in its influence. The debts were 
paid; the money for endowment secured and the era 
of the New Marietta began. Mr. W. W. Mills, a grad- 
uate of the college, one of its trustees, its treasurer, 

117 



LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS 

one of its most generous friends, President of the 
First National Bank of Marietta, says, "The gift 
of Dr. Pearsons was most timely, as it enabled the 
college to pay its debts and to secure a substantial 
addition to its endowment funds. I have no doubt 
the offer of Dr. Pearsons influenced many to give to 
the college at that time, and enlarged its constitu- 
ency. The gift enabled the college to liquidate a 
debt which had existed practically ever since the 
foundation of the institution, and to lay the founda- 
tion of an endowment which has been considerably 
increased. There is no doubt about the great value 
of the effect of Dr. Pearsons' gift upon the present 
and future of Marietta College.' ' 

It has brought it an increased number of students, 
encouraged its friends and its faculty, and made it 
possible for it to maintain that high rank in scholar- 
ship which the Secretary of the General Board of 
Education has given it. One who visits the Marietta 
of today, and looks upon the noble buildings which 
surround and adorn its campus, or enters the building 
furnished by Mr. Carnegie in which are stored many 
of the rarest documents relating to early American 
History, can hardly realize through what straits the 
college has passed, or in what financial distress it 
found itself only a few years ago. Out of these 
difficulties the timely gift of Dr. Pearsons extricated 
it, put new life into all its friends, and secured for it 
a future of large and ever enlarging usefulness. 



118 



GIFTS FOR INSTITUTIONS 

Montpelier Conference Seminary, Vermont 

When Dr. Pearsons made up his mind to help 
Montpelier Conference Seminary to secure an endow- 
ment which would perpetuate its usefulness and en- 
able it to do its work without anxiety as to its sup- 
port, he wrote to one of the leading Methodists of the 
state to ask if a gift from him of $50,000.00 would 
bring $150,000.00 from eastern friends. The Seminary 
was on the point of disbanding. Its credit was gone. 
It owed $50,000.00 and had only $18,000.00 produc- 
tive endowment. Impossible as it seemed to meet 
the conditions, answer was returned to Chicago that 
they should be met. At times many were discour- 
aged but a few would never give up. Again and 
again the time for meeting the conditions was 
extended till at length after four years of struggle 
it was possible to inform the Doctor that he might 
send the money. No one had done more toward 
creating the spirit which triumphed in the face of 
great difficulties than the Doctor himself. When 
he learned that the friends of the Seminary were 
almost ready to confess defeat, and vote to close the 
Seminary, he wrote letters to the President of the 
Seminary, and through him sent words of greeting 
to all its friends assuring them of success if they 
would only pull all together and keep on giving 
until the money was obtained. No one rejoiced in 
the success of the money-raising campaign more than 
the man who had started it. No wonder President 

119 



LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS 

Bishop says "The Doctor saved the school. Bless- 
ings on him." 

There were special reasons for Dr. Pearsons' 
interest in this Seminary. When it was known as 
Newbury Seminary he had prepared for college in it. 
Here he had a teacher whose influence upon him was 
profound and of whom he never ceased to speak 
with gratitude. Here he was converted and began 
that Christian life in which he rejoiced during the 
years of his strenuous business career and which fur- 
nished the principles by which he was guided in the 
distribution of his millions. In that old Seminary 
apart from the aid he received from home, he lived 
on forty cents a week and this money and what was 
needed for tuition, books and clothing he earned as 
he went along. It was in Vermont that he was born 
and this name was dear to him. How could he be 
content to do nothing when a school of which he had 
so many memories and to which he felt so much 
indebtedness was about to die? There is pathos in 
the letter which accompanied the check sent to 
President Bishop. It is full of clear vision of the 
future. To understand it one must read between 
the lines. It is the message of a prophet, and if its 
words seem inspired, we must remember whose 
words they are, and dwell for a moment on the 
seventy and more years which lay between their 
utterance and the student of seventeen years. They 
were years of ambition, ambition which had been 
realized; years of professional success, of business tri- 
umph, of ability in old age to repay the debt which 

120 



GIFTS FOR INSTITUTIONS 

he owed the institution by saving its life and fitting 
it for a larger usefulness than it had ever known. 
Though often printed, that letter should always 
have a prominent place in any account of what Dr. 
Pearsons has done. In it we get a hint of the motives 
by which he was governed, and the vigor of his mind 
at ninety. 

"Fifty Thousand Dollars, farewell! You have 
been in my keeping for many years, and you have been 
a faithful servant. Your earnings have helped to 
educate many young men and women who have 
helped make the world better. You came to me from 
the grand old white pine forests of Michigan, and now 
you are going into the hands of other stewards in the 
State of Vermont. There you are to become a part 
of a perpetual endowment fund of $150,000 for Mont- 
pelier Seminary, $100,000 of which sum has been 
given by the people of Vermont. When you arrive 
in Montpelier you will go into the keeping of good 
business men, and you will be safe; as I expect that 
every dollar of this perpetual endowment fund will 
be kept intact and actively doing good for five hun- 
dred years. 

"Over one hundred years ago a good man gave 
$50,000 for mission work. The interest on this fund 
has educated more than a hundred good men for the 
mission field, and is still being used for training men 
for the business of brightening the world and mak- 
ing it better. 

"In Denmark there is an endowment fund 
founded over nine hundred years ago, and not one 
cent has been lost or wasted. I expect the same 
fidelity in managing this endowment fund. 

"I left Vermont in 1840. This gift, added to other 

121 



LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS 

gifts, makes $90,000.00 which I have been privi- 
leged to contribute to the betterment of the dear old 
State. 

"Now Fifty Thousand Dollars, farewell! Go into 
the keeping of younger men, and God's blessing go 
with you! Do your duty and give the poor boys 
and girls of Vermont a fair chance. 

D. K. Pearsons." 

MlDDLEBURY COLLEGE, VERMONT 

The value of Dr. Pearsons' twenty-five thousand 
dollars to this old college and the immediate effect 
of his offer cannot be described more vividly, or in 
more emphatic langage than in a letter from its 
President, John M. Thomas, who is, as Dr. Pearsons 
repeatedly declared, a man after his own heart. 

"November 14th, 1910. 

"I was elected to the Presidency of Middlebury 
College in October, 1908. The college had then 200 
students, and its numbers had increased steadily 
for a number of years, but its endowment was alto- 
gether insufficient and there were not enough build- 
ings. Only two buildings had been erected since 
1861, and the endowment had remained practically 
stationary for a number of years. There was special 
need of a building for girls, who were scattered in 
homes all over the village. 

" Something needed to be done to arouse the loyalty 
of the Alumni and to stir interest throughout the 
State of Vermont. I appealed unsuccessfully to 
the General Education Board and other benevolent 
organizations and individuals. The feeling seemed 
to be that our college was too small to need help and 

122 



GIFTS FOR INSTITUTIONS 

that we had not been making sufficient progress. 
Then I wrote Doctor Pearsons and asked him for 
$50,000.00 for a building for girls. His reply was 
'Can you raise $100,000.00 in Vermont or other 
places? Are you a good beggar? It takes a smart 
man to raise money.' I answered that I thought I 
was a fairly good beggar and proposed to raise a good 
deal more than $100,000 before I got through. He 
answered right away, 'You need $100,000.00 to do 
the work right. I will give you $25,000.00 when you 
raise $75,000.00. I have only one style of doing 
business.' 

" That was my first gleam of real hope in my work 
as a college president. It was a very little thing, as 
many of our great colleges and universities count 
benefactions, but for me, it meant a chance to get 
started on my life-work. With all my heart I 
thanked God for Doctor Pearsons and my gratitude 
to him will continue as long as I live. 

"I announced the conditional offer of $25,000.00 
on my inauguration day. While the people were 
still applauding one man put his hand on my shoulder 
with a pledge of $5,000.00. Before night I had 
$22,100.00 and a $10.00 bill from a school teacher— 
the first actual cash to meet Doctor Pearsons' offer. 
In just one year to a day from the date of his offer, 
I had the $75,000.00 in hand and the Doctor was 
writing his check. 

"The campaign thus initiated was incalculable to 
our institution. It rallied our Alumni and won new 
attention to our College all over this region of country. 
The class received the following autumn was the larg- 
est Middlebury had ever known. In two years the 
attendance has increased from 203 to 275, and the 
income from tuition is $10,000.00 greater. A suc- 
cessful summer school has been inaugurated. The 

123 



LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS 

General Education Board, which earlier would not 
consider our appeal, has given us a conditional 
grant of $50,000.00 towards a fund of $200,000 and 
all but $62,000 of that is now pledged. The Vermont 
Legislature has made us an appropriation of $6,000.00 
a year and established a Department of Pedagogy 
for the training of high-school teachers. The col- 
lege has really started upon a new era of expansion 
and usefulness, and no one can question that the 
beginning of the movement was the offer of Doctor 
Pearsons and his 'one style of doing business.' 

(signed) John M. Thomas." 

The real reason for this gift as Dr. Pearsons has 
said again and again is not only his love for Vermont 
and her schools, but his wish that poor girls, espe- 
cially, living in the state and unable to attend large 
and wealthy colleges, may have a place near their 
homes, where at a comparatively small expenditure of 
money they may go and receive an education as 
good as that furnished at Wellesley or Smith or 
Mount Holyoke. 

Mount Holyoke College, Massachusetts 

It has already been stated that very early in his 
professional career in Chicopee, Dr. Pearsons had 
been interested in Mount Holyoke College. It 
was a seminary then, and very small, for it was at 
the beginning of its great history. His wife, who had 
been trained under Miss Emma Willard in Troy, 
believed fully in the higher education for women. 
The members of her family shared in her belief. 

124 



GIFTS FOR INSTITUTIONS 

Her father's house was one of the places to which 
Mary Lyon could always come and be sure of a 
welcome. Her whole family sympathized with Miss 
Lyon in her purposes and in her plans. It is only 
natural that the husband of one of the daughters in 
such a home should be interested in Mary Lyon also, 
and that with his love for learning and his sympathy 
with those who obtain it with great difficulty, he 
should frequently visit it and resolve that if ever he 
were able he would assist just such schools as this 
one at South Hadley. Years passed — all or nearly 
all of the early friends of the school had died. The 
school had grown into a college. Still, although 
there were many teachers now, the spirit was the 
spirit of Mary Lyon. The prosperity of the institu- 
tion had increased its burdens till they could no 
longer be borne. Young women were knocking for 
admittance at doors which could not open to them. 
The graduates of the old seminary saw that something 
must be done. In all parts of the country meetings 
of these graduates were held to consider the situation 
and to devise plans to meet the crisis. Dr. Pearsons 
was at once interested in the movement and having 
broken his rule to make no gifts for any institution 
east of Chicago, he found it easy to persuade himself 
that money set aside for a college which had trained 
girls like those who had gone out into the world from 
Mount Holyoke, would be well invested. 

"In January, 1896," reports Mr. A. L. Williston, 
the Treasurer of the college, "Dr. Pearsons offered 
to give $50,000.00 for endowment, if its friends would 

125 



LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS 

raise $150,000.00, and as he wrote that he was sure 
we would get it, he gave us $25,000.00 at once. After 
the great fire in September Dr. Pearsons telegraphed 
from the South where he was then resting, while 
the embers were still burning, '40,000.00 to rebuild 
Mt. Holyoke'; in July, 1897, he sent the $40,000.00 
in cash. In March of the same year he gave $10,- 
000.00 toward the sum which the New York Alumnae 
were raising for the Mary Brigham Hall. In June, 
1898, the college had raised $150,000.00 for endow- 
ment, and the Doctor sent the $25,000.00 remaining 
unpaid on his pledge of $50,000.00. So well pleased 
was he at what he saw and heard on a visit to the 
college, that he agreed to continue his offer of one 
dollar for every three dollars others would raise for 
the college during another year. This cost him 
$50,000.00 more, and when he sent it, it was with the 
conviction that no money had ever been better ex- 
pended than that which he had given for the educa- 
tion of girls in Mount Holyoke. It was a home insti- 
tution to which he was contributing, an institution 
founded by a woman whose memory he revered, and 
whose example he was praying that many others 
would follow." 

Miss Woolley, the President, says "We cannot 
overestimate the value of Dr. Pearsons' gifts from 
the point of view, both of the material assistance 
rendered at a very critical time in the history of the 
college, and also of 'moral support' and stimulus to 
other gifts. I think I am right in saying that with 
the exception of the 'Todd bequest,' about two 

126 



GIFTS FOR INSTITUTIONS 

hundred thousand dollars, Doctor Pearsons has given 
more than any other single giver, and we are very 
grateful to him. The good work which he started 
by his gifts for endowment we are now trying to con- 
tinue in an attempt to add at least half a million 
dollars to that endowment before our seventy-fifth 
anniversary in nineteen hundred and twelve, — an 
addition which is imperative for the raising of our low 
salaries. Dr. Pearsons is one of the comparatively 
few people who appreciate the necessity for endow- 
ments, and the academic world should be grateful 
to him for his influence in that direction, as well as 
for many other reasons." 



127 



X 

GIFTS TO BELOIT COLLEGE 



X 

GIFTS TO BELOIT COLLEGE 

DR. PEARSONS was drawn toward Beloit by 
many reasons in addition to its proximity to 
Chicago, the promising character of its field 
and the excellence of its work. He recalled the fact 
that in 1835 his interest in the locality of the college 
had been aroused by seeing four wagons pass his 
father's house in Vermont with people and their 
baggage from northern New Hampshire on the way 
west to settle in a place afterwards called Beloit. 
On his first visit to the West in 1851 with Mrs. 
Pearsons he forded the Rock River and stopped at 
the place of which he had first heard, when a boy of 
fifteen. As previously stated, on starting for Janes- 
ville he asked a man who entered the stage at Beloit 
what that building was which was going up on the hill 
and received as an answer, "Oh, that is a college 
which some eastern cranks are trying to build." 
"During the ride to Janesville," says the Doctor, "he 
and I discussed the value of colleges, he attacking 
them, I defending them, till at parting I told him 
I was going to help such colleges as that when I 
had become rich." Dr. Pearsons did not forget his 

131 



LIFE OF DR. D. K PEARSONS 

promise although nearly forty years had passed 
before he was in a condition to redeem it. 

One morning in May, 1889, a letter was put into 
the hands of President Eaton, from a man he had 
never met, of whom he knew nothing. It contained 
these words: "President Eaton. If I give Beloit 
$100,000.00, can you raise $100,000.00 by July 1? 
I mean business. 

Truly, 

D. K. Pearsons." 

Could the challenge be met? At any rate the at- 
tempt must be made. The result was that the $100,- 
000.00 was obtained in the short space of seven weeks 
and the college put into possession of what then 
seemed to be the large sum of $200,000.00. That 
was the beginning of a series of gifts which have 
brought the college into the rank of the strong col- 
leges of the country. The conditions of an offer in 
1895 of $50,000.00 if three times that amount were 
raised were not met till 1898. In 1901 $200,000.00 
were offered the college if $150,000 were added to it. 
This condition was met. In 1908 $25,000.00 more 
were given toward the $200,000 the Trustees were 
trying to add to the college endowment. Mean- 
while the Doctor had given large sums for much- 
needed buildings. For the erection of Chapin Hall 
$25,000 were provided in 1891. The next year $60,- 
000.00 went into the Pearsons Science Hall and in 
1897 $30,000 were expended for the building of 
Emerson Hall, the home of the college girls. Dr. 

132 



GIFTS TO BELOIT COLLEGE 

Pearsons' gifts to Beloit thus amount to more than 
a half million dollars, to say nothing of the constit- 
uency he has helped to create for the college and the 
stimulus he has imparted to its faculty and its friends. 

The value of these gifts and the effect they have 
had on the fortunes of the college no one can set 
forth so well as Dr. E. D. Eaton, the president of 
the college when the gifts in money were made and 
the buildings erected. Slightly modified and con- 
densed, his words are as follows: 

"In 1889, Beloit College, with a splendid record 
of over forty years of devotion to high ideals, was 
struggling to obtain resources for its development 
along the lines of the new education. Its equip- 
ment was meager, its faculty few in number. On 
the tenth of May in that year the President received 
a letter which read as follows: 'President Eaton: 
If I give Beloit College $100,000.00 can you raise 
$100,000.00 more by July 1? I mean business. 
Truly, D. K. Pearsons.' The effect was electric. 
Citizens of Beloit, Trustees and Faculty, Alumni and 
friends of the College bent to the task, and in less 
than seven weeks the money was obtained and the 
new Beloit was born. Commencement that year 
was a time of great rejoicing. Dr. Pearsons then 
made his first visit to Beloit College. As he walked 
over the campus, he exclaimed 'This is New England.' 
He was now redeeming the promise he had made so 
long ago, and was helping the college on the hill. 
On the platform on Commencement Day, he made 
the first of a series of addresses, keen, witty, elo- 

133 



LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS 

quent, with thought and feeling, which have become 
historic in the annals of Beloit. That autumn the 
foundation of a new building was laid, the first of 
ten buildings which these years of swift development 
have brought the college." 

At that time the pressure of two urgent problems 
had begun to be increasingly felt: One, the 
want of an adequate building and equipment for 
teaching physical sciences; the other the demand 
for a commodious dormitory. Under the guidance 
of Professors Chamberlain and Saulsbury, of the 
University of Chicago, then members of the 
faculty of Beloit, foundations had been laid 
for exceptionally good work in science in the 
college, but accommodations and apparatus for 
teaching were woefully lacking. Growth in the 
number of students had increased the rent for rooms 
in the village, and thus laid a burden on the shoulders 
of poor students which they were finding hard to 
bear. Dr. Pearsons was deeply interested in the 
situation. He expressed his willingness to give 
$30,000 for a Science Building, if others would give 
as much, Soon afterwards he had decided to give 
$25,000.00 for the building of a dormitory, the Pres- 
ident alone knowing from whom the gift came. It 
pleased the Doctor to pay for the building in cash, 
rather than by check, so that the President had the 
experience of going from Chicago to Beloit with his 
pockets full of bills for the payment of the contractor. 
In the meantime the Doctor told the President that 
he decided to withdraw his offer of $30,000.00 for a 

134 



GIFTS TO BELOIT COLLEGE 

Science Building and put a part of that money into 
a dormitory instead. The President was greatly 
disturbed, but said nothing. Commencement night 
1892, Dr. Pearsons made it known, from the plat- 
form that he was the giver of the dormitory, and 
named it Chapin Hall, in honor of the revered first 
President of the College. During the applause that 
followed he took from his pocket a letter, turned to 
President Eaton and said, "You have shown that 
you can keep a secret but I would have you know that 
I can keep one, also. I have one of my own of which 
you know nothing. I have put it into a letter which," 
he roguishly added, "I have brought with me from 
Chicago to save a postage stamp. Here it is and 
you must read it to the audience." The astonished 
and almost overpowered President read aloud as 
follows: "I will give Beloit $60,000.00 for a Science 
Hall, if the Trustees will raise $120,000 to equip and 
endow it." Little wonder that at the close of the 
exercises the college boys laid hold of Dr. Pearsons 
and in spite of his protests put him into a carriage 
and drew him to the place where the Commencement 
dinner was to be served. Toward meeting the con- 
ditions imposed at this time Mr. William E. Hale 
of Chicago, one of the Trustees gave $60,000.00 and 
the other $60,000.00 was raised among other friends 
of the college. During the autumn of that year 
the building took shape on the campus, and since 
has been a prominent and determining factor in the 
life of the college. 

When, in 1895, it was determined that young 
135 



LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS 

ladies should share in the advantages of the college, 
Dr. Pearsons at Commencement promised $50,000 
if $150,000.00 more were raised. At the semi-centen- 
nial celebration of the opening of the college in June, 
1897, he declared his purpose to put $30,000.00 into 
a building for young women, which he afterwards 
named Emerson Hall, in honor of one of Beloit's 
oldest and most honored professors. The speech 
in which that gift was announced is so character- 
istic of other addresses made at Beloit and at some 
other colleges, that it is here given entire. 

"I had a college president come to my office a few 
days ago. He sat down by me, looked me in the 
eye. I did not know but what he was going to take 
hold of me by the collar, — and he said, 'Why do you 
give to Beloit so much? Why don't you give to the 
rest of us?' I did not tell him that it was none of 
his business. No, because I treat all college presi- 
dents and college professors with the greatest consid- 
eration. Are there any men in the world who can 
compare with the self-sacrificing college presidents 
and professors? They work for small pay, they 
work for God and humanity. Therefore under all 
circumstances I treat them with the utmost kindness. 
And I receive them from every portion of the coun- 
try. I have an interview with college presidents 
nearly every day. 

"Now I am going to answer the question about 
Beloit. That is a fair question. It is my duty to 
answer it. The first college I helped . . . and 
I have helped sixteen, was Beloit College. I did 
not make any mistake. No, I think it shows that 
I am a pretty shrewd man. I will tell you why. 

136 



GIFTS TO BELOIT COLLEGE 

Beloit College from top to bottom is thoroughly 
honest. You never have deceived me, you never 
have tried to terrify me in any shape or manner. I 
wish I could say the same of all colleges. You have 
been frank and honest. Everything you have agreed 
to do, you have done. 

" I could say a great deal more, but I am coming 
to the point now which I am greatly interested in. 
A good gentleman and lady, Mr. and Mrs. Stowell, 
have given this college a beautiful block and build- 
ing costing $30,000.00, which they have paid for 
outright. There it stands. What are the young 
ladies that come to Beloit to have in the future? 
Those young ladies who come to Beloit in the future 
ought to have a beautiful building, a charming build- 
ing, where they can have a real nice family home and 
be under the direction of a grand and good matron. 
And I propose to build that building. That build- 
ing will cost $30,000.00. It will be taller than Cha- 
pin Hall, a little longer and a little wider. It will be 
a beauty. Now I say to you gentlemen of the 
trustees board, go on and build your building. As 
fast as you build call for your money and you will 
get it. When you get it built, you will get every 
dollar in money, not a check, but right out in money. 
Build it economically. I intend that that $30,000.00 
shall build a superb building, and shall put in heat- 
ing apparatus and a radiator in every room. I will 
tell you why. You can build thirty per cent cheaper 
now than you did when you built Chapin Hall. You 
know that, every one of you. There are men idle 
who want work. Now is the time to pitch in and 
build. 

"I am not going to dictate to the Trustees about 
that building. I have got business enough of my 
own. I do not run a risk though in telling these 

137 



LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS 

gentlemen to go on. I confine them with certain 
limits. That is business. But if you look back 
eight years and see what these gentlemen have done 
in building you will see that they can be depended 
upon to do anything in that line. Look at Seoville 
Hall, the Chapel, Science Hall, the finest in the 
world. There is one thing more I would have. 
That beautiful building has got to be furnished. Do 
not any of you gentlemen rise up and say, I will 
furnish it. You are not going to have anything to 
do with it. The ladies of the North West will fur- 
nish that building. You and I, ladies, are working 
together now. The building is going to be furnished, 
and it will cost about $4,000.00. When you go back 
to your homes in Janesville and all around, ladies, 
at the very next meeting of your ladies' association 
just tell them that you are going to furnish a room 
in what, — I will tell you what it is, — in Emerson 
Hall. It is not often you name a building before it 
is built, but Dr. Emerson, it is your hall. 

"Now I want to tell you one thing. You know I 
feel perfectly at home in this audience. I have been 
here four times. I have talked to you in a form that 
I would not talk in under ordinary circumstances. 
I have never given to a liberal institution, as they 
term it, — I never will. Never. I do not believe in 
giving to an institution that uses the prayer-room as 
a dancing-hall, or Shakespeare for the Bible. 

"Now I am not coming here again until you get 
your endowment raised. Then I will come up. 
You might as well go about raising that endowment 
now for your prosperity adds to your expense. When 
you write that you have got it all, I will come up 
and bring the $50,000.00 in clean cash. I will not 
give you a check, but the money itself. When you 
write me that the endowment is raised, I will come, 

138 



GIFTS TO BELOIT COLLEGE 

and not before. I have very good reasons why I 
have given to Beloit. I will help you as much in 
the future as I have in the past." 

One of the exercises at the commencement in 1898 
was the dedication of Emerson Hall. Mr. Hale of Chi- 
cago represented Dr. Pearsons, who could not leave 
Chicago, and Professor Emerson spoke for the college 
and the young women for whom it had been erected. 
At that time Dr. Pearsons gave the college a check for 
$51,000.00, the extra thousand dollars being for 
Mrs. Pearsons, to help meet the conditions imposed 
by her husband when his pledge was made. 

When the health of the President was seriously 
impaired in 1901, Dr. Pearsons came forward with 
an offer of $200,000.00 if the Trustees would raise 
$150,000 and the President would remain with the 
college and return to his work, after taking suitable 
rest. These conditions were speedily met, and Be- 
loit College became as strong a college financially as 
it long had been in its faculty and in the character 
of its work. 

Four years later the President found a change of 
occupation so absolutely necessary that he reluc- 
tantly accepted a call to the pastorate of a New Eng- 
land church whence, two years later he was persuaded 
to return to Beloit. But before consenting to fill 
his old position he took the lead in a campaign which 
increased the endowment of the college $200,000.00, 
toward which Dr. Pearsons contributed $25,000.00. 
"For twenty years now," says President Eaton, "Dr. 

139 



LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS 

Pearsons has been the dynamic of Beloit's new life; 
at every critical point in the history of the college his 
moulding and energizing spirit has been embodied in 
the development which has characterized the epoch." 
Generous and valuable as Dr. Pearsons' gifts to 
the college have been, it ought not to be forgotten that 
the conditions upon which they were offered could 
never have been met, save for the unflagging inter- 
est in the college on the part of its trustees, and the 
liberal way in which they themselves contributed. 
They were leaders in the money-seeking campaigns. 
Nor did they grow weary or discouraged when many 
said, "The conditions cannot be met." They said, 
"We must meet them, and we will." And they did. 
In the earlier campaigns, or till he became President 
of Wooster University, Ohio, they had the invaluable 
assistance of Rev. Lewis E. Holden, then financial 
agent of the college. Mr. Holden had a genius for 
raising money. He could obtain it where every one 
else would fail. And he obtained it because he loved 
the college from which he had graduated, in which 
he was a professor and in whose present and future 
work he believed with all his heart. His enthusiasm 
never failed nor did he ever shrink from any task, 
however distasteful, provided it promised something 
for his Alma Mater. To him should be accorded 
as it is by those who know what he accomplished, 
the credit for no small share in securing the victory 
in the earlier campaigns for the money called for to 
meet the conditions upon which the offers of Dr. 
Pearsons were made. 

140 



GIFTS TO BELOIT COLLEGE 

Dr. Pearsons has admired the college for its Chris- 
tian character and for the devotion to its interests 
on the part of its trustees, its graduates, and more 
than all, of its faculty. He has never tired of speak- 
ing of the noble work of President Chapin, Professors 
Emerson, Blaisdell and Porter, who literally gave 
their lives for the college, and for the larger share 
of their pay were content to look upon the character 
of their students and the place they filled in the 
world. Such an institution he felt ought to live, 
be fully equipped for all the work demanded of it, 
and its influence perpetuated through an endowment 
he could help it secure. 



141 



XI 

GIFTS TO OTHER WESTERN COLLEGES THAN 
BELOIT 



XI 

GIFTS TO OTHER WESTERN COLLEGES THAN 
BELOIT 

PARK College, Parkville, Missouri, is one of 
the colleges in which Dr. Pearsons has 
been especially interested. It is the out- 
growth of the devotion of a single family, father and 
sons, the McAfees. Thoroughly Christian in its 
spirit, Presbyterian in its denominational prefer- 
ence, yet absolutely tolerant, furnishing opportun- 
ities for self-support so abundant that no one who 
really desires an education need hesitate to seek 
it, it could not fail to win the respect and sympathy 
of a man like Dr. Pearsons, who has always sought 
to invest his money where it would return the larg- 
est dividends. 

It has a large plant and is entirely out of debt. 
Its endowment is small, for an institution of its size, 
though it is steadily increasing. Its President, Dr. 
Lowell M. McAfee, says, "I can assure you most 
unqualifiedly that few gifts have come to Park at 
a time when they were more timely and more help- 
ful than that of Dr. Pearsons. For some years we 
had made no appreciable advance in our endowment. 
10 145 



LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS 

We needed just the impetus that his gift of $25,000.00 
afforded. I cannot speak too highly of our apprecia- 
tion of his kindness and helpfulness in placing his 
seal of approval on the work of the institution." 

There are thirty or more buildings on the campus, 
unpretentious all of them, but suited to the purpose 
for which they were erected. Parkville is not far 
from Kansas City and is in the center of a region 
where the work the college is trying to do, and has 
been successful in doing, is greatly needed. 

Dr. Pearsons has made no large gifts to any of the 
Iowa Colleges. He has felt that a state with the 
wealth of Iowa, and the appreciation the people in 
general have of the value of an education, might 
wisely be left to provide for its own institutions. 

To Coe College, a small college at Cedar Rapids, 
he has, however, given a thousand dollars, and at a 
time when this sum was very much needed. 

Tabor College also received about one thousand 
dollars from him, without any conditions attached 
to it. The gift was of very great value, as without 
it, it would have been well-nigh impossible to com- 
plete a building greatly needed in the college work. 
The sympathy expressed in the gift, and the approval 
thus given the college were worth more than the 
money, indispensable as that seemed to be. Tabor, 
as is well known, occupies a field entirely its own and 
is furnishing opportunities for higher education to 
a class of students very eager to accept them. 

Hastings College, Nebraska, has received $10,000 
from Dr. Pearsons. Though a small college, its 

146 



GIFTS TO OTHER WESTERN COLLEGES 

history has been creditable, and its future is prom- 
ising. 

Doane College in southern Nebraska, so called 
after its most generous benefactor, has done for 
nearly a generation, fine work with a very scanty 
equipment. Its graduates have distinguished them- 
selves in almost every rank of life. As a child of 
the Congregational churches of the state, it has again 
and again received their willing aid in adding to its 
endowment. This year, 1911, it has received from 
them, notwithstanding recent gifts which taxed their 
capacity to the utmost, seventy-five thousand dol- 
lars, for the twenty-five promised and paid over by 
Dr. Pearsons. The college has a campus of great 
beauty, one which the oldest and richest university 
in the country might well covet. President Perry 
has given his life to the college, and with the assist- 
ance of able professors, has brought it into the first 
rank of the smaller colleges. 

The fact that Washburn College, situated as it is 
at the capital of the State, has been able to attract 
the attention of wealthy men in the east, and has 
received large gifts from them, has led Dr. Pearsons 
to feel that it would be wiser for him to give to col- 
leges with fewer resources open to them than the 
college at Topeka. He has, however, taken a deep 
interest in Washburn, has watched its growth care- 
fully, and years ago presented it with a thousand 
dollars. To this gift he makes no reference when 
speaking of the institutions he has aided. 

Fairmount College, Wichita, in Southern Kansas, 
147 



LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS 

is one of the rapidly growing institutions of that 
great state. The city in which it is located has all 
the push and enterprise of the north and west, but 
in social life is characterized by much of the charm 
and refinement of the south. Many of the leading 
citizens of Wichita, and not a few of the best friends 
of the college are southern born. The majority of 
the students at Fairmount are from Kansas, though 
a few are from states further south. To the appeals 
of Fairmount for aid, Dr. Pearsons has responded 
with gifts aggregating $40,000.00. These gifts have 
drawn the attention of many friends of learning to 
this college, and to such a degree that its enthusiastic 
and very able President, Rev. Henry E. Thayer, 
is now inaugurating a campaign for a very consid- 
erable increase in the endowment of the college, the 
erection of new buildings and an increase in the 
faculty. Fairmount has demonstrated its right to 
live, and its value to the large constituency which 
geographically belongs to it. That the present 
campaign for an increase of funds will be entirely 
successful, those who are acquainted with President 
Thayer and his Board of Trustees do not for a mo- 
ment doubt. 

Colorado College at Colorado Springs, is one of 
the institutions which has received substantial aid 
from the Doctor's purse. Years ago when on a visit 
to the Springs during a summer vacation, he declared 
his purpose to a friend to assist the college at some 
future time. The friend was dubious. He had 
heard wealthy men talk before. He made an entry 

148 



GIFTS TO OTHER WESTERN COLLEGES 

in his note-book that Dr. Pearsons of Chicago has 
said that sometime he was going to aid the little 
struggling college at Colorado Springs, and added 
that he was going to see how the promise was kept. 
No man was more surprised than he, when he 
learned that the Doctor had come to the rescue of 
the college, had encouraged its President to under- 
take a money-raising campaign, in which he had 
little hope of success, but which, pushed with un- 
wearied energy and carefully planned, brought the 
college its first large endowment, and fifty thousand 
dollars from the man who long before had promised 
to aid the college. That college is now the leading 
institution in the state, has more students than it 
can accommodate, and is suffering from a demand 
for special instruction in departments not yet estab- 
lished. In appreciation of what Dr. Pearsons has 
done for Colorado and other colleges, President 
Slocum writes: 

"It is not easy to place a just estimate upon the 
value of the beneficence of Dr. D. K. Pearsons. 
Without doubt Mr. Andrew Carnegie was right 
when he said that there never had been in the his- 
tory of America a case of giving which had accom- 
plished as much of value to the whole country as 
the gifts of Dr. D. K. Pearsons to the colleges of the 
West. It is of very distinct advantage that these 
gifts are the result of painstaking and business-like 
investigations. No set of institutions in the coun- 
try has done more for moral, as well as intellectual 
leadership, than have these colleges, which are dis- 
tinctly religious in their influence. It is the recog- 



LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS 

nition of this fact, which has placed such high value 
upon the discriminating benevolence of Dr. Pear- 
sons. He has recognized that there are certain 
strategic points in the West, where colleges should 
be established and developed, and with the far-sight- 
edness of a man well acquainted with this section of 
the country, he had poured his millions into these 
institutions and made it possible in many cases for 
them to go on with their beneficent work. 

"It is remarkable that he has been able to give such 
a large amount of time to a study of these colleges, 
visiting them, making careful examination of their 
curriculums, and especially of their business methods, 
and watching their growth with an interest that has 
been keen as well as sympathetic. 

"The result has been that not only have his dona- 
tions been wisely placed, but he has set an example 
to others which has resulted in doubling or even 
trebling the value of his own gifts. 

"Aside, however, from the great financial worth of 
his munificence, the greatest value of his gifts has 
been, that by means of them he has set on their way 
moral and religious influences, which are the hope 
of America. No one can study keenly such tenden- 
cies throughout the West, without realizing how 
these influences are largely centered in the type of 
college which he is supporting; colleges which are 
constantly sending into the world a stream of young 
men and women who are taking places of leadership 
in all that makes for the highest good of the coun- 
try. It is this which has made Dr. Pearsons' gen- 
erosity of such national importance. As the years 
go on, it will be recognized more and more that it 
is this which constitutes the inestimable value of the 
gifts of this great and wise philanthropist, whose 
memory will be cherished not only by the institu- 

150 



GIFTS TO OTHER WESTERN COLLEGES 

tions which he has helped, but by the thousands of 
earnest, high-minded, self-reliant young people who 
received college training because of his generosity 
and who are rendering service throughout the world, 
which is one of the highest value." 

To the College of Idaho, at Caldwell, Dr. Pearsons 
gave $25,000.00 in 1909. This with $75,000.00 
obtained from other sources provided an endowment 
of $100,000.00, which has been increased through 
the stimulus created by the interest taken in the col- 
lege by Dr. Pearsons, to $160,000.00. President Boon 
says, "The College can never forget that Dr. Pear- 
sons led the way to financial success, or that its Vice 
President, Miss Julia V. Finney, one of its faithful 
teachers, was the agent through whom his interest 
in the college was aroused." The field which the 
college occupies is full of promise and as it has the 
moral and financial support of the Presbyterian 
Church of the whole country, it can hardly fail 
to become a large and important institution of 
learning. 

In the College of Montana at Deer Lodge, Dr. 
Pearsons was interested when he first heard that its 
establishment was proposed. His promise of $25,- 
000.00, made as soon as there was any prospect that- 
additional funds could be secured, "was," writes 
the President, "undoubtedly the means of securing 
our endowment. It made possible the work since 
done and the high degree of efficiency and success 
since reached." With a large body of students in 
attendance, the state rapidly increasing in popula- 

151 



LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS 

tion, an able faculty and the Presbyterian Church 
interested in it, its future is assured. 

Carleton College, Northfield, Minnesota, has 
received $50,000.00 from Dr. Pearsons. It was prom- 
ised to Dr. J. W. Strong, then President of the college, 
on condition that double the sum be raised in addi- 
tion, for endowment. He promised also to pay one 
half of the amount whenever fifty thousand dollars 
were secured. May 19, 1900, the college received 
$25,000.00 and January 8, 1901, $25,000.00. The 
gift was of great service to the college in itself and in 
the influence it had in creating confidence in its 
character and worth. 

Lawrence University, under Methodist control, 
and located at Appleton, Wisconsin, one of the 
institutions in which Dr. Pearsons lectured when he 
represented Dr. Calvin Cutter in the West and in 
the South, in the late fifties, received from him five 
thousand dollars, toward the erection of Science 
Hall. President Plantz says: "This gift was of 
the greatest importance to us, since it gave a start 
to a needed enterprise and helped stimulate General 
Isaac Stephenson to make a large gift for the same 
cause. I doubt if we would have been able to erect 
the Science Hall at the time we did if Dr. Pearsons' 
gift had not given us a valuable start. Its erection 
marks the beginning of the recent prosperity of our 
college both in attendance and in the development 
of our resources." 

Toward the erection of Ingram Hall, which is a 
Science Hall, for Ripon College, Ripon, Wisconsin, 

152 



GIFTS TO OTHER WESTERN COLLEGES 

Dr. Pearsons gave five thousand dollars. The 
money came at a critical time and made it possible 
to secure a building which was an absolute necessity, 
and has served its purpose with increasing efficiency. 
President Merrill, then at the head of the college, 
wrote the Doctor that he believed him to be the 
wisest giver he had ever known. His gifts were not 
always made on conditions hard to meet. Nor did 
he always care to have it known that money came 
from him for any special object. He often concealed 
his gifts under the name of another. He was thus 
true to his purpose of investing his money where he 
was persuaded it would do the most good. 

For Northland College, Ashland, Wisconsin, Dr. 
Pearsons has invested $10,000.00 in an endowment 
which as yet is very small. This college is the child 
of missions and as a frontier college, with a field from 
two to five hundred miles in extent in different direc- 
tions, has an opportunity rarely equalled for Chris- 
tian and educational influence. "It is the leading 
agency," says Rev. E. P. Wheeler, "to mould and 
unify and raise up leaders for the virile races of 
Northern Europe, beginning the struggle among the 
stump lands of the Lake Superior region." The 
college is in its infancy, but the children of heroic 
German and Scandinavian settlers, and of "the 
equally heroic but defeated peasantry of Finland, 
Poland and Russia" are showing themselves eager 
to embrace the opportunities it offers them for an 
education. 

To Huron College, Huron, South Dakota, $15,000 
153 



LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS 

have been given. This gift was the beginning of a 
permanent endowment. As to its value, President 
French writes, "This money from Dr. Pearsons 
was the first money given to us as general endow- 
ment funds. Because of his reputation for wisdom 
as well as generosity in his giving, it has been of great 
value to us, to be known as one of his children. 
Our college is an especially good example of the 
kind of institution in which he believes and which 
he desires to help. His pioneer work in helping the 
small western Christian college, I consider of the 
utmost importance to the country at large. On 
patriotic as well as on Christian grounds he could 
have done nothing wiser or more far-reaching for 
good with his money." This Presbyterian College 
has made a good name for itself, and in a few 
years, with a more ample endowment, will become 
one of the important educational institutions of the 
state. 

Yankton College, Yankton, South Dakota, has 
received generous aid from Dr. Pearsons. He 
greatly admired the character and work of Rev. 
Joseph Ward, founder of the college, pastor of the 
First Congregational Church of the city, friend 
and promoter of all the religious interests of the state, 
whose service as educator and Christian minister 
was cut short by his death in 1889. Two years 
later he offered the college $50,000.00 on condition 
that $150,000.00 more were raised. If buildings 
and campus were worth at that time a little less 
than $50,000, and the debt was hardly less than that 

154 



GIFTS TO OTHER WESTERN COLLEGES 

sum, it would seem as if hope of success in meeting 
these conditions were slight indeed. But through 
the efforts of the Rev. W. B. D. Gray, seconded by 
the untiring zeal and self-sacrificing service of Mrs. 
Ward, so much was secured that part of the pledge 
was redeemed in 1893 and the remainder at Com- 
mencement in June, 1895. The panic of 1893, the 
fact that many of the contributors were unable to 
pay what they had promised and the general decrease 
in the price of land, greatly reduced the actual value 
of the subscription. But the debt was paid, and 
Ward Science Hall was erected and dedicated with- 
out incurring any new obligations. In 1895 the 
Doctor urged President Warren, then at the head 
of a College in Utah, to leave the college he was then 
serving, and if called to Yankton, as he was very 
shortly afterward, to accept the call, difficult as the 
position would be to fill. Almost the first advice 
he gave the new President was to reduce expenses. 
This was done, both in 1898 and 1899, able men put 
upon a salary of $800 a year, an amount upon which 
it was very hard to live. 

In the spring of 1900 the Doctor offered the Presi- 
dent $50,000.00 if the debt, which in spite of every 
effort had been increasing until it had reached the 
sum of $30,000.00, was paid by March 1st. The 
money was raised chiefly in small gifts, though one 
gift of $5,000.00 from a gentleman in the East, whose 
name was concealed, changed doubt and despair into 
cheer and certainty. By June, 1906, $90,000.00 
had been secured for buildings and endowment, and 

155 



LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS 

to this sum Dr. Pearsons added $30,000. In speak- 
ing of his "princely generosity," Dr. Warren writes 
"He stretched forth a generous hand to feeble begin- 
nings which other great givers refuse to consider, 
and by his benefactions made early and large success 
possible. Childless, himself, the colleges and the 
young people in them are his children. In them 
are thousands of teachers and students who not 
only now while he is still with us, but to the last day 
of their lives will rise up and call him blessed." 

It is not too much to say that if Dr. Pearsons 
had failed to come to the rescue, the college could not 
have survived the pressure of continued deficit and 
the panic of 1893. It was the timeliness of his gift 
as well as its size which gave confidence, as well as 
relieving the college from burdens almost unbear- 
able. The college is now well established, though 
as a flourishing institution it demands far larger 
means than at present are at its disposal. The 
President and Trustees are now seeking to obtain, 
for buildings and further endowment not less than 
$250,000.00 by the end of the present college year. 
If this aim is not realized at the coming Commence- 
ment, the effort will doubtless be continued till that 
greatly needed sum is secured, and the college brought 
into a condition where it will be better able to do 
the work which a growing and prosperous state 
requires. 

Fargo College, Fargo, North Dakota, has also 
received a large sum from Dr. Pearsons. He had 
believed in its mission from the first. He sympa- 

156 



GIFTS TO OTHER WESTERN COLLEGES 

thized with the aim and efforts of its first President, 
Rev. H. C. Simmons, whose sudden death was caused 
by his devotion to Christian education, and the reli- 
gious interests of the state. But for a gift of $50,- 
000.00 from Dr. Pearsons that first endowment of 
$200,000.00 could not have been obtained. His 
later gift of $20,000.00 for the completion of Dill 
Hall was equally important and valuable. "The 
first gift came," says Dr. Cragin, the President of 
the College, "at a time when discouragement was so 
great that the Trustees were nearly ready so give 
up the institution. That gift saved its life and ren- 
dered its future growth possible. No wonder that 
he is spoken of by the Trustees, as our great friend. 
If he could see," adds Dr. Cragin, "the institution 
at the present time, with the Carnegie Library, a 
beautiful building almost ready for use; with our 
splendid faculty representing some eighteen univer- 
sities and colleges, including Harvard, Columbia, 
Oxford, Leipzig, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Oberlin 
and Beloit; with our fine body of students, an in- 
crease of fifty per cent as compared with last year; 
if he could know of the large number of students 
who are earning their own way, he would feel that 
he has never made a better investment." That this 
is nearly always said by the President and friend of 
every institution he has aided is proof of the wisdom 
of his beneficence and of the care with which it has 
been bestowed. 

Rev. E. H. Stickney, one of the Trustees of the 
college and connected with it from its organization 

157 



LIFE OF DR. D. K PEARSONS 

and active in all efforts for its development, writes, 
"Dr. Pearsons' gift of one thousand dollars to cur- 
rent funds at a time when all were feeling the burden 
very much and were ready to give up, was providen- 
tial. Two out of five members of the Executive 
Committee had voted to close the doors of the col- 
lege. Then came the offer of $50,000.00 if $150,000 
more were raised for endowment. Impossible as it 
seemed to do this the close of 1902 saw the money 
in hand. A later gift of $20,000.00 completed Dill 
Hall, a building greatly needed for administration 
and scientific purposes. These gifts were the means 
of saving the college. They came at a time to remove 
discouragement and to lay the foundations upon 
which a great institution can safely and surely be 
built." 

Similar testimony is given by George E. Pearley, 
Esq., one of the most faithful of the Trustees, and 
one who often consulted with Dr. Pearsons, and 
who, if he felt at first that the conditions of his gifts 
were severe, came afterwards to look upon them as 
"the severity of kindness and of high wisdom." 
With an endowment of $200,000.00 well invested, 
it would seem as if a college with a goodly number of 
students, in the commercial center of a rapidly 
growing state like North Dakota, need never again 
be in a critical condition. But hard times and ina- 
bility to secure any considerable sum of money from 
the friends of the college in the state made it diffi- 
cult five years later, and well nigh out of the ques- 
tion to complete the Administrative Building. The 

158 



GIFTS TO OTHER WESTERN COLLEGES 

walls were up, windows and doors were boarded up. 
The unfinished structure seemed to be saying to all 
who saw it, "You perceive the weakness of the insti- 
tution. It is about to die." At this crisis Dr. 
Pearsons wrote, "Finish Dill Hall. I enclose a 
check for $4,000.00. More will be sent as needed, 
till you have the $20,000.00 you ask for." That 
gift ended the era of doubt for Fargo College. 

The financial outlook for Drury College in the 
years 1892 and 1893 was gloomy and discouraging. 
Competing schools had laid upon the college the 
necessity of an extended Curriculum and additions 
to her Faculty. And further a $20,000.00 debt and 
increasing annual deficits seemed to preclude a for- 
ward movement. The continual call upon the 
friends of the College for gifts to meet annual deficits 
had become burdensome and disheartening. The 
friends of the College felt that light must break in 
and early relief must come or twenty years' work 
be jeopardized. "Letters, prayers and calls were 
sent everywhere — seeking some Moses who should 
lead us over the Red Sea of our difficulties. It 
was at this time the college turned its hope toward 
Dr. D. K. Pearsons of Chicago, and our faith in his 
wise judgment and benevolent heart was not con- 
founded." 

When "our necessities and opportunities were laid 
before him" by Dr. H. T. Fuller, then the President, 
Dr. Pearsons surprised him by saying promptly, 
"I will give the college $50,000.00 if the friends of 
college will give $100,000.00 more. Or I will cover 

159 



LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS 

this amount in two pledges — giving $25,000.00, if 
you will raise $50,000.00. This generous pledge 
brought comfort and hope and some trembling to 
the college, and the campaign was opened with an 
effort to meet the first conditional offer, and the 
amount was raised by January 1st, 1894. Dr. Pear- 
sons sent forward his check for $25,000.00 and it 
looked wonderfully good to the college. Again the 
friends of the institution rallied with determination 
to meet the second conditional gift of $25,000.00, 
and it was met January 1st, 1895, and Dr. Pearsons 
forwarded his second check for $25,000.00 more. 

None except those upon the ground could under- 
stand the new joy and hope these gifts of Dr. Pearsons 
inspired. The future of Drury College was felt to 
be secure. New gifts would come easier since future 
donors would be assured their gifts would not be 
lost. 

This royal help of Dr. Pearsons made his name a 
household word in the whole Southwest, and led 
many schools and even individuals to write to this 
benefactor for aid. The college and city now desired 
to have this great donor visit the Southwest and 
the Faculty and the City Council extended to him 
a pressing invitation to come; finally, in April, 1901, 
Dr. Pearsons and his beloved wife found it conven- 
ient to visit Springfield while on their journey to 
Eureka Springs for a brief rest. Great preparations 
were made to make their visit notable and the whole 
body of the faculty and students went to the depot 
to welcome them and escort them to the college. 

160 



GIFTS TO OTHER WESTERN COLLEGES 

A carriage was decorated with college colors and the 
two higher classes planned to draw them to the col- 
lege grounds. But the unpretentious benefactor 
declined this offer with thanks and desired to drive 
down in "his own hired carriage." He was driven 
down to the grounds and halted before the splen- 
did edifice that had been made possible by his gift, 
and he greatly admired it, and told his companions 
that it made him very happy to see it. After prom- 
ising to be at morning Chapel exercises they retired 
to the hotel for the night. 

The visitors were on hand early, and the faculty, 
students and many from the city were present to 
greet them. All saw Dr. Pearsons and his wife and 
heard his unique speech. The following are a few 
excerpts from his address. 

"Faculty, Students and Citizens, if my tongue 
were tipped with eloquence, I would throw the tip 
away, for I wish to talk a little plain common-sense. 
I am intensely interested in young men 
and women. I want to give the poor boy a chance. 
I have a little fund of $150,000.00 which I loan to 
young men and women through college treasuries, 
and I have never lost a dollar. ... I was 
introduced at Beloit College as Dr. Pearsons, C. B. 
(College Builder). At another place as holding the 
degree of P. E. (Professor of Endowments). I made 
my money by strict economy. I never spent a 
dollar foolishly. I never saw a horse race. I never 
saw a ball game. I never went to a theatre. 

"Some say I am close fisted; I am. Some call 
11 161 



LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS 

me an old Puritan. I am proud of it. My habits 
are simple. I rise early. I attend strictly to busi- 
ness. I have made my money honestly, I take 
advantage of no man. 

"I advise rich men to put their money in 
colleges out west, Christian colleges. ... A 
friend of mine lately told me that he was building 
a monument for himself and family in the cemetery 
that would cost him $40,000.00. I told him I was 
building a monument for myself and wife that would 
cost over $5,000,000.00, and this monument is 
associated with the Christian colleges in the land. 

"Young men, if you amount to anything in this 
world you must hustle. Young men and women, 
the promised land is before you. You must hustle 
to obtain it. 

"Grit makes the man, the lack of it, the chump, 
Therefore young man take hold, hang on and hump." 

In honor of this visit the college gave a holiday 
to its students and the visitors looked over all the 
college buildings and in the afternoon the President 
gave a reception to the visitors and many citizens 
of Springfield called and paid their sincere respects. 

In 1908 Dr. Pearsons again came to the help of 
Drury College, with the handsome gift of $20,000.00, 
making a total in gifts of $70,000.00. 

In the present hopeful outlook for Drury College 
Dr. D. K. Pearsons is regarded as the man and sol- 
dier who "stood in the breach," and his large gifts, 
which were accumulated honestly, will continually 
bless the work of Drury College. 

162 



GIFTS TO OTHER WESTERN COLLEGES 

The success of a later campaign for $250,000.00 
depended very largely upon the judgment of Dr. 
Pearsons. A number of people, friendly to the 
college, hesitated about additional gifts. Dr. J. H. 
George, the President, consulted with the Doctor 
and received from him, not only a contribution for 
the fund, but also his unqualified and hearty endorse- 
ment of the proposition in the interests of Christian 
education. This opinion of Dr. Pearsons was much 
quoted in satisfying liberal friends of Education 
that an investment in cash in Drury College would 
yield ample and satisfactory returns in the way of 
fitting young men and women for their life work. 
Drury regards the Doctor as the one man who has 
stood firm, strong and hearty in favor of the insti- 
tution, and has created a sentiment of confidence, 
among the generous patrons of education through- 
out the country, so that it is now confidently under- 
taking to increase the endowment by half a million 
dollars, to meet the growing needs of the Institution. 



163 



XII 
AID FOR BEREA COLLEGE 



XII 
AID FOR BEREA COLLEGE 

BEREA College was founded in 1855. It was 
located in the Village of Berea, Kentucky, 
which is about one hundred and thirty-one 
miles south of Cincinnati, Ohio, on the Louis- 
ville and Nashville Railway. Rev. John G. Fee, one 
of its founders, said of it, "It is a dreary place," but 
prayer, consecration and untiring effort have built 
up here one of the most remarkable and useful educa- 
tional institutions in America. In 1910 it had 1400 
students, over 1000 of them living in buildings or 
barracks on the campus. It owns over 170 acres of 
farming land and 4000 acres of forest land, purchased 
in order that students may have practical lessons in 
forestry. It has a system of water works which cost 
$50,000.00 to install. Several of its buildings have 
been erected almost entirely by student labor. This 
is true of the chapel which seats more than 1500 peo- 
ple. The brick was burned on the farm and the tim- 
ber obtained from the mountains. The annual bud- 
get, which is on a very economic scale, in 1910 was 
$89,000.00. Over and above the income from $900,- 
000.00 endowment, a large deficit has to be raised 

167 



LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS 

every year. This budget provides the kind of edu- 
cation which the mountain people especially need. 
These people have been belated in their development 
by living in comparative isolation for two centuries, 
and need domestic, agricultural and economic train- 
ing, as well as that which fits one to be a school- 
teacher or to follow a profession. There are depart- 
ments for instruction in nursing, domestic science, in 
printing, brick-making, mountain farming, carpenter- 
ing, blacksmithing, the selection and care of stock. In 
these departments students are trained for the practi- 
cal work of life. Board is furnished at cost and 
tuition is low. Students are encouraged to earn 
their way by their work. From 1859 the school 
was for a time suspended on account of the feeling 
of hostility in the state which had arisen against it, 
and during the Civil War it was twice interrupted 
by the presence of armies. In 1866 it admitted the 
first colored students, obtained a charter as Berea 
College, and until 1904 youth of both sexes, white 
and colored, profited from its instructions. In 
that year the legislature of Kentucky, yielding to a 
growing pressure from many sections of the South, 
passed a law requiring the separation of the races in 
all the schools of the state. The law was obeyed, 
and when its legality was upheld by the Supreme 
Court, the Trustees of the College promptly set aside 
$200,000 of its then scanty endowment, for the sup- 
port of its colored students in institutions like Fisk 
University, Nashville, Tennessee, where at one time 
141 were taught. A campaign for $200,000 more 

168 



AID FOR BEREA COLLEGE 

was immediately begun and when the money was 
secured, a site between Louisville and Lexington 
was purchased: there under the name of the Lincoln 
Institute of Kentucky, a new and separate school 
was started on its independent career. This move- 
ment left Berea free to devote itself with greater 
consecration to the cultivation of the special field 
open to it, the training of the young people of the 
mountains. For this work increased endowment 
has been sought and obtained, but more and better 
buildings are still greatly needed. In confining its 
efforts to this, at first seemingly more limited field 
the friends of the college have received sympathy 
and aid from many of the most influential and far- 
seeing people in America. As an example of this, 
one may point to the great meeting held on Lincoln's 
birthday, February 11, 1911, in Carnegie Hall, 
New York, at which such men as the Hon. Seth 
Low of New York, and Governor Woodrow Wilson 
of New Jersey were present, and in which they took 
a prominent part. At that meeting a letter from 
President Taft was read in which he said, "Berea 
is doing a great work in educating the mountaineers 
of the South." 

Governor Wilson of Kentucky wrote, "No school 
has done, or can do so much for this Appalachian 
Region as Berea." 

Justice Harlan, as one familiar with the moun- 
taineers of the South, wrote — "What these moun- 
taineers need, who are by nature manly Americans 
is opportunity. Give them churches, and school- 

169 



LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS 

houses, and financial aid, and great results for the 
country will follow." 

As one of the speakers at that meeting, President 
Frost of Berea called attention to the fact that these 
mountaineers are living in a state of society not 
unlike that of the time of Alfred the Great of England, 
that they are of the best possible stock with many 
noble traditions, the finest traits of character, and 
eager for a training that will make their mountains 
a better place in which be to born and to live. 

Governor Wilson, of New Jersey, himself a south- 
erner, and acquainted with the mountain region of 
the South from boyhood, said — "When you are asked 
to subscribe for Berea you are asked to subscribe 
for a renewal of the life of the country at its sources. 

"These people, living as they do, remote from the 
great routes of travel, in the pockets of the mountains, 
on their slopes, amid their forests, are of an old 
stock, Scotch-Irish, are conservative by nature, yet 
thoughtful as well as imaginative, are the kind of 
people out of whom the best kind of American citi- 
zens can be developed. President Lincoln was of 
them. He knew them, honored them because he 
knew them, and trusted them, and they did not 
disappoint him in the trying times of the Civil War. 
There are three million of these southern whites 
living in the mountains which belong to the ends of 
seven states, grouped around East Tennessee, to be 
educated." 

The Charter of Berea reads : "In order to promote 
the cause of Christ, primarily by contributing to 

170 



AID FOR BEREA COLLEGE 

the spiritual and material welfare of the mountain 
region of the South, affording to young people of 
character and promise a thorough Christian educa- 
tion, elementary, industrial, secondary, normal and 
collegiate with opportunities for manual labor as an 
assistance in self-support." 

The school was begun by slaveholders, who did 
not believe in slavery, who hoped that through 
education its gradual abolition might be brought 
about. Although slavery has gone, the purpose for 
which the school was founded, the education of the 
children of the sturdy people of the mountain regions 
of the South, remains . . . They need a different 
training from that furnished in northern academies, 
or in the high schools and colleges of the South. 
All that is best in their traditions and habits should 
be preserved. They should be encouraged to con- 
tinue their fireside industries, weaving and the like. 
As not all of the young people can attend school and 
none of the older people, efforts are made to reach 
them in the summer by going among them and living 
among them in tents and giving instruction in house- 
keeping, improvement in the management of farms, 
the raising of stock, and exciting interest in these 
and kindred subjects by the use of the stereopticon. 
Travelling libraries are kept constantly in circulation. 
Coming thus into close touch with the people in their 
homes, a desire is created to attend the school at 
Berea, even at the great sacrifice which must often 
be made to do so. That Berea is doing something 
toward helping these mountaineers into a new and 

171 



LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS 

larger life, while yet encouraging them to remain in 
their mountain homes is evident from the fact that 
every year many more students apply for admission 
to its privileges than can find shelter in its buildings. 
Dr. Pearsons was interested in Berea by a visit 
from its President, W. G. Frost, in 1895. At first 
he declined to put it on his list of college benefici- 
aries, but he agreed to go to Berea for Commence- 
ment and after thorough investigation said in public 
that as soon as Berea would raise $150,000.00 he 
would add $50,000.00 to that amount. He made no 
limitation as to time. At the end of four years the 
money was in the treasury and Dr. Pearsons sent 
his check for the amount he had promised. Another 
pledge of $50,000.00 made on the same conditions 
was paid in July, 1900. Then in 1904 he paid as 
called for $50,000.00 for a system to bring water 
to the college campus and thus render the hygienic 
conditions of the college what they should be. This 
gift, Dr. Pearsons regards as the best gift he has ever 
made to any institution or to any object. On his 
89th birthday writing from Pasadena, he promised 
$25,000.00 for a dormitory for boys and sent the 
money in a month. To this no conditions were 
attached. During that year he promised $100,- 
000.00 as soon as four times that sum was secured, 
and the pledge was redeemed in January, 1911. 

Writing November 16, 1910, President Frost says: 
"I went to Chicago to see Dr. Pearsons in January 
or February, 1895, and had an interview with him 
in his office in the usual form. I was introduced by 

172 



AID FOR BEREA COLLEGE 

Dr. Simeon Gilbert, former editor of the The Advance. 
The Doctor asked me a great many questions, and 
then said that he was powerless to do anything for a 
year or more at least, and waved me out of the office. 
Being in Chicago, I took the time to call upon a num- 
ber of leading men, in order to make them acquainted 
with Berea's work and opportunity. Shortly after 
I left the city, it seems Dr. Pearsons called a little 
conference of advisers as to Berea, and among them 
several of the gentlemen whom I had just seen and 
'posted.' 

"The result was that a few weeks later Dr. Pearsons 
wrote me saying that if Dr. Fifield would attend the 
next Commencement at Berea to give the address, 
he would come with him and visit the college. He 
came and was entertained at our house. He investi- 
gated the institution from the library to the kitchen, 
and took great delight in the stalwart mountaineers 
who filled our Tabernacle on Commencement Day. 
At the close of the exercises, he made a speech which 
was much appreciated and at the end gave us our 
first pledge. Realizing that Berea did not have an 
Alumni and constituency like other schools he waived 
the time limit: 'Whenever Berea College will raise 
$150,000.00 for additional endowment, I will add $50,- 
000.00 to it.' 

"This pledge was an immediate introduction to 
people of means and patriotism everywhere. We 
had the double burden of raising money for current 
expenses at the same time we were working for the 
new endowment. It took us four years, but in 1899 
when we completed this endowment we had a list 
of friends. 

" The whole endowment had drawn attention to the 
mountain region as nothing before, and Dr. Pearsons 
received many letters of congratulation from public 

173 



LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS 

men all over the country. In a few months, he re- 
peated the offer of $50,000.00 on condition of our 
raising $150,000.00 more. This time the task was 
completed in a year. 

"Berea then entered upon a course of internal 
development, adapting its methods more carefully 
to the peculiar conditions of its mountain field. The 
number of students increased rapidly. The new 
friends who had been enlisted for the Pearsons' 
endowment helped us in the construction of the 
industrial building and in other improvements. 
Some of these friends interested themselves in helping 
us to buy a considerable forest reserve. 

"The project of piping water from certain springs 
on this forest reserve to the college grounds in Berea 
was kept in mind as we purchased land, and plans 
and specifications were laid before Dr. Pearsons in 
1902, and in 1903 he made his pledge to Dr. Barton 
of $40,000.00 for these water works, and an 
additional $10,000.00 for sewers and plumbing. 
This, at once, put Berea on an hygienic basis. We 
had not realized what risks and deprivations were 
involved in our limited water supply. 

"Then came the gift of $25,000.00 for Pearsons 
Hall, a dormitory for young men. Our only men's 
dormitory was Howard Hall, built by the Freed- 
man's Bureau right after the war, a building whose 
very floors had been trodden through by honest wear. 
The majority of our young men were living in tem- 
porary quarters in the upper stories of the Industrial 
Buildings or in barracks of cheap construction. This 
gift of Pearsons Hall was particularly cheering, com- 
ing as it did, when we were in the agony of raising 
the 'Adjustment Fund.' 

"The offer under which we are now working, 
November, 1910, and which was made successful by 

174 



AID FOR BEREA COLLEGE 

gifts from more than eighty people, is for $100,000.00, 
conditioned upon our securing $400,000.00 more by 
the end of this calendar year. This offer came at a 
time when I was just breaking down from too eager 
and incessant work, and the whole movement had 
to wait for my recovery. Perhaps, we should have 
despaired had it not been for a $50,000 bequest from 
John S. Kennedy of New York; following this, our 
Trustees during my absence secured other important 
pledges. 

"Dr. Pearsons has done far more than any other 
man for Berea and for the entire mountain region. 
He has given us the things that were most needed, 
and at the time when they were needed, and he has 
given them in such a way as to enlist a multitude of 
other friends in the cause of Berea and in the general 
cause of mountain uplift. He has right to a happy 
old age." 

Rev. William E. Barton, D. D., of Oak Park, 
Illinois, a graduate and one of the Trustees of the 
College, in describing the installation of the Water 
Supply and the efforts to obtain it says: 

"It is difficult to speak in terms other than super- 
lative of Dr. Pearsons' gifts to Berea College. Twice 
in succession he gave to it conditional gifts of $50,- 
000.00, each, requiring the raising of $150,000.00 
more, and now has pending an offer of $100,000.00 
upon the condition of the securing of $400,000.00 
additional, making a total of $900,000.00 Endow- 
ment secured to the Institution under the leverage 
of his conditional offers. His gift of $25,000.00 for 
Pearsons' Hall, secured the erection of the first modern 
building for men, and his interest in the Institution 
has been alert, continuous and helpful. 

175 



LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS 

"But, of all his benefactions to this important 
institution, his gift of the Water Works stands out as 
perhaps the most unique and interesting gift ever 
made to an American College. 

"Berea College, admirably located for the varied 
work which it has to do, stood subject to great incon- 
venience in the lack of an adequate water supply. 
Rev. John G. Fee, himself, told of the dreariness of 
the place when he first visited it, and of the rebuke 
that came to him through the word of a bystander 
living in the neighborhood. 'It is a dreary place,' 
said Mr. Fee, and Mr. Rawlins replied in the words 
of the hymn, 'Prisons would palaces prove, if Jesus 
abides with us there.' 'There is no water,' said 
Mr. Fee; 'Moses smote the rock and water gushed 
out,' answered the neighbor. 'Dig a well where 
we stand,' said Mr. Fee, and the well was dug. 

"In the early years that and other wells supplied 
the school, but the time came when another smiting 
of the rock was necessary. The great growth of the 
institution rendered the water supply dangerously 
inadequate. There was peril from fire and pestilence, 
for the town extended far beyond all adequate water 
resources and contaminated the surface springs. 
Epidemics of typhoid fever were annual and fire- 
insurance premiums rose to an almost prohibitive rate. 

"The problem of securing water was not easy to 
solve. No sufficient supply was within five miles 
and the springs were widely scattered over a large 
area. Through the wise foresight of President Frost 
a large domain had been secured as a forest preserve 
and this was extended so as to include a number of 
pure flowing springs. A right of way also was ar- 
ranged for and a series of surveys and testings extend- 
ing over many months gradually brought the plan to 
a point of feasibility. 

176 



AID FOR BEREA COLLEGE 

"At this stage of the proceeding, a Chicago Trustee 
took the plans of the survey to Dr. Pearsons, and by 
appointment carried them to his home where he went 
carefully over them with Dr. and Mrs. Pearsons. 
Every important point in the situation was canvassed 
and at length the promise was made of $50,000.00 to 
install a complete and permanent water system for 
Berea College. 

"There were ten large springs, five in each of the 
two valleys. The ground plan of the reservoir 
position looked like two arms of a man spread out 
and with five fingers on the end of each and a spring 
at the end of every finger tip. Ten large stone 
reservoirs were built and pipes laid from each to 
junction points, from which the water was conveyed 
down the two valleys to another junction, thence 
carried in a single pipe across the valley and over a 
gap 200 feet high to the College Campus five miles 
away. It was a great engineering feat, embracing 
very many practical difficulties, and when it was 
finally completed and water was successfully piped 
to the campus with sufficient pressure to carry it to 
the tops of the buildings, a new chapter in the develop- 
ment of Berea College began. Health, cleanliness, 
security from fire, all took on new promise, and again, 
as of old, the rock had been smitten and abundant 
streams of water gushed forth. 

"Dr. Pearsons has repeatedly said that no gift ever 
made by him gave him such satisfaction as this. 
He has said of it that he regarded it as a definite 
inspiration and impulse from God, and profoundly 
believed that in doing this he was obeying a distinct 
divine command. Perhaps no gift ever made to an 
American college is so fitted to appeal to the imagina- 
tion or so visibly fitted to supply a great, imperative 
and permanent need. Buildings may be destroyed, 
12 177 



LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS 

endowments may be squandered, trusts may be 
betrayed, but so long as human beings need water, 
Berea will need this gift, and so long as water flows 
down hill, the plans on which these Water Works 
were constructed will continue to be of service to the 
great and growing institution at Berea." 

W 7 hile a believer in higher education for those who 
are prepared for it, Dr. Pearsons as a practical 
man has believed thoroughly in providing for the 
people of mountains the kind of instruction best 
fitted for their wants. He has confidence in their 
ability and in their desire to make the most of them- 
selves. He is in deep sympathy with them. "I 
am a mountain man. I was once as poor as they are, 
and as ignorant." Hence when he had become 
familiar with the work which Berea has been raised 
up to do, he devoted large sums for its enlargement. 

That these gifts have been appreciated is indicated 
by letters like the following from Rev. J. A. Rogers, 
Woodstock, Illinois, dated June 18, 1904. Mr. 
Rogers was one of the founders of Berea and wrote 
as one who had knowledge. His letter was addressed 
to Dr. and Mrs. Pearsons, as the latter was as much 
interested in the gift as her husband. The letter 
is given in full and reads as follows: 

"Dr. and Mrs. D. K. Pearsons 

Dear Friends: I call you friends for you have 
shown yourselves such devoted friends that any one 
who loves Berea College as I have loved it for fifty 
years, though now absent, can but look upon you as 
dear and choice friends. I think if you knew the 

178 



AID FOR BEREA COLLEGE 

joy your last gift to Berea of the Water Works has 
caused your hearts would sing for joy. It is not easy 
to express the gratitude we all feel, and we rejoice 
not only in the present blessing through this gift of 
yours by which God's gift is brought to men, but 
generations unborn will receive help through this flow 
of the pure stream of life-giving water. As the oldest 
living trustee and one who helped lay the foundations 
of Berea College in a little shanty of a schoolhouse, I 
give you for us all, our grateful thanks. May the 
God of all blessings bless you most abundantly. 

Your grateful friend, 

J. A. Rogers." 

As other gifts from Dr. Pearsons were announced 
from time to time, letters of approval and congratu- 
lation came from Governor Bradley of Kentucky 
and ex-President Roosevelt, then Governor of New 
York. The wonderful development of the institution 
and its widely extended influence are proof that no 
mistake has been made in providing so generously 
for its endowment and its buildings. But no one 
has been able to appreciate the importance and value 
of these gifts so well as President Frost, who has been 
at the front in all the money-raising campaigns. 

When a check for $25,000.00 for the Dormitory 
was received, he wrote, May 4, 1909: 

"You are the most astounding man, and the only 
man I know who can do something more remarkable 
than D. K. Pearsons ever did before. Here comes 
your check for the entire amount of our new building. 
You meant to shock us, and we were shocked. Treas- 
urer Osborne hardly knows what to do with his 
responsibilities. But all of us are swept away by a 

179 



LIFE OF DR. D. K PEARSONS 

great wave of love and gratitude for the friend who has 
been so much to the institution and to each one of us 
now for sixteen years. You have a right to be happy." 

In another letter of later date he uses these same 
words," You have a right to be happy," and adds 
to them, "I believe you are happy." 

At this time Berea students sent this telegram: — 

"Berea students and workers send you hearty 
thanks. We pledge ourselves to follow your example 
in unselfish devotion to the things which make the 
world better." 

In approval of the method of conditional giving 
followed so largely by Dr. Pearsons and criticized 
by many, Dr. Frost wrote, as late as March 1, 1911: 

"I wish to go on record every time I can as com- 
mending the specific plan of conditional gifts which 
Dr. Pearsons has pursued so consistently. In fact if 
he did not invent the plan, he has given currency to it 
beyond any other giver, so that many others must 
be considered as following in the line of his example. 

"There are always those who complain against this 
form of giving, alleging that it distresses the institu- 
tion and seems ungenerous on the part of the giver. 
It is my sincere conviction that the only way in 
which rich men can give large gifts without doing 
ultimate harm by weakening the hold of institutions 
on the general public and drying up the spirit of 
benevolence among those of more moderate means is 
to make their gifts conditional. The offer of a large 
sum on such conditions always compels attention 
on the part of wealthy people, it raises sympathy, it 
advertises the cause and it finally develops a wide 
circle of friends and supporters." 

180 



XIII 

AID FOR SOUTHERN COLLEGES OTHER THAN 
BEREA 



XIII 

AID FOR SOUTHERN COLLEGES OTHER THAN 
BEREA 

NEARLY all the institutions which Dr. Pearsons 
has assisted in the South had established 
a name for themselves before he interested 
himself in their welfare. He recognized fully 
the need of the South for the kind of education 
in which he believed long before he did anything to 
promote it. But he did not see his way clear to 
furnish the help the colleges in the South seemed to 
demand until he had been aiding colleges in the 
North nearly or quite ten years. Yet in spite of the 
difficulties with which they contended many of them 
had done and were doing heroic work and every year 
were sending out into the world a large army of 
well-trained young men and women. Let J. Henry 
Harms, President of Newberry College, Newberry, 
S. C, a Lutheran Institution founded in 1856, tell 
the story of what was done for it. It is too well 
told to justify the omission of any part of it. 

"December 14, 1910. 
"Dr. Pearsons came to the help of our college in 
1906. The college was preparing to celebrate its 

183 



LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS 

fiftieth anniversary. Its endowment was sadly 
insufficient, the opportunities tremendous. Under 
the able leadership of Dr. James A. B. Scherer, at 
that time President, an effort was begun to raise 
money for the institution. Dr. Pearsons was ap- 
pealed to for aid in the undertaking. In his own 
wise and thorough way he inquired into the merits 
of the appeal, and decided to give us $25,000.00 
provided our people would raise the sum of $50,000.00 
to make a fund of $75,000.00 for endowment. His 
offer was accepted. The conditions were met. And 
the fund was raised. 

" In the first place this offer of Dr. Pearsons was a 
compliment to the college. It was an endorsement 
that the people needed. It renewed their faith in the 
institution. They argued that if a wise, judicious 
giver like Dr. Pearsons gave his money to their col- 
lege, then their college must be more worth while 
than even they imagined. It charmed the people. 
They had pride in their institution. But it was the 
oratorical sort of pride that says nice things on holi- 
days and commencement. Dr. Pearsons' offer put 
their pride to work. That is one of the best things 
he has done for us. He made the college bigger in 
the estimation of its friends. 

"In the next place Dr. Pearsons' gifts tirred the 
people up to give. We had a small constituency. 
We were weak financially. It looked impossible for 
such a handful of poor Lutherans to raise the sum of 
$50,000.00. But Dr. Pearsons had flung a challenge 
at them. And they said that if 'an old abolition- 
ist,' as he calls himself, thinks enough of our college 
to give it $25,000.00, surely we who know the college 
and know its value to the South, can raise at least 
twice as much. And they did. Dr. Pearsons 
proved to be the right sort of an 'abolitionist.' 

184 



OTHER SOUTHERN COLLEGES 

He 'abolished' the slavery of hundreds of white 
people in this state — their slavery to limited notions 
of themselves, their money and their college. In a 
few months after the offer was made the campaign 
wound up with all conditions met. It was an epoch- 
maker in our history. Hundreds of people gave the 
college money who never gave money to it before. 
After fifty years the college was born again. And I 
think the story of the man behind the gift helped as 
much as anything. The story of Dr. Pearsons' life 
stirred the people everywhere. The spectacle of a 
man deliberately setting himself to give away a 
fortune simply captured the imaginations of our 
warm-hearted Southern people. It stirred their 
deepest benevolent emotions. The short of it is: 
Dr. Pearsons is our benefactor, not so much because 
he gave us money, as because he made our people 
give it. And the beauty of it is they like to give, 
as he likes to give. They caught his secret, the secret 
he received from the Man who gave himself and said 
'It is more blessed to give than to receive.' 

"Then again Dr. Pearsons helped to enlarge the 
scope of our college work. Our particular business 
in the South is to help the poor boy get an education. 
Our college aims to help the boy who is willing to 
help himself. We want to put the price of education 
down within the reach of the poorest farmer's son. 
We find hundreds of boys back in the country who 
are hungry to go to college, but cannot quite afford 
it. There are hundreds of young men in our cotton- 
mill villages who need help and need it badly. We 
want to help these farmers' sons and 'factory' 
boys. To get these boys into a Christian college 
is the biggest moral and social problem in our state. 
And that was what we were after when Dr. Pearsons' 
offer came. There are thousands waiting yet. 

185 



LIFE OF DR. D. K PEARSONS 

We could have twice our enrollment if we had the 
money to get more teachers and accommodations. 
We have done well with Dr. Pearsons' money. 
Invested at eight per cent, we have used the proceeds 
to employ three new teachers and enlarge our dormi- 
tories, laboratories and lecture rooms. We have 
boys here who are working their way. We have 
forty-one in this session who are being helped with 
scholarships. We give some of them employment at 
the college. Located in the center of the state, we 
are in the very midst of ripe and ripening opportuni- 
ties. With our reputation for thoroughness and econ- 
omy we have no trouble getting students. Our 
only trouble is that we cannot make room for all 
who want to come. 

"I may conclude by saying that Dr. Pearsons has 
helped us to grow in every way. He helped to put 
us in the front rank of southern colleges. He showed 
us our possibilities. With an endowment of little 
over $102,000.00 we are maintaining a plant of ten 
buildings and a teaching force of fifteen. It takes 
strict economy to pull through. Dr. Pearsons has 
made us realize our need of more endowment. We 
are still very poor but most ambitious to be of service. 
Dr. Pearsons has been our partner in the manufac- 
ture of intelligent Christian manhood — the greatest 
business in the world. 

"We like Dr. Pearsons down here. On May 6, 
1909, he sent us $10,000.00. This made a total of 
$35,000.00 which he has invested in Newberry Col- 
lege. I have hung a fine portrait of him in our 
Chapel. The students shout his name in their 
college yells. In further recognition of what we owe 
to him we are at work raising a fund of $75,000.00 
to be called after the name of his sainted wife. 

"I regard Dr. Pearsons as one of the greatest men 
186 



OTHER SOUTHERN COLLEGES 

in the country. He is a most remarkable character, 
and his life is a benediction to Newberry College 
and other colleges." 

President Carl G. Doney of the West Virginia 
Wesleyan College located at Buckhannon, gives Dr. 
Pearsons credit for saving the institution of which 
he is the head. His words are: 

"Dr. Pearsons has made two gifts to this College: 
one of $25,000.00 and the other of $10,000.00. The 
first gift was made during the progress of 'The 
Twentieth Century Thank-Offering Movement' and 
was given on condition that this college should 
secure an additional sum two or three times as great. 
The second gift of $10,000.00 was made after our main 
building was consumed by fire February, 1905. No 
one can adequately estimate the far-reaching good 
of these benefactions. It would seem that Dr. 
Pearsons almost literally saved this college. These 
gifts have encouraged and stimulated the friends of the 
institution so that they have given for the school more 
than they would otherwise have done. This college 
is located in the center of the state and exclusively 
serves a great constituency. I know of no place in 
all Christendom where money produces such large 
results in Christian, scholarly character as it does 
here. The school is a great center sending out strong 
men and women to all parts of the state in all lines 
of activity. West Virginia would be impoverished 
without the college and the college would have been 
apparently impossible without Dr. Pearsons." 

President John H. Race of the University of Chat- 
tanooga, Tennessee, writes under date of November 
10, 1910: 

187 



LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS 

"This Institution, which is a successor to Grant 
University, recognizes in Doctor Daniel K. Pearsons 
'The Father of Our Endowment.' His conditional 
offer of $50,000.00 was made April 1st, 1906. It was 
given with the understanding that $150,000.00 addi- 
tional should be secured in cash or bankable notes 
toward the permanent endowment fund. This con- 
dition was met. Doctor Pearsons rendered this 
institution a great service at an opportune period in 
its history. We are exceedingly grateful to him for 
his interest in us." 

The University is under Methodist control, has 
prospered greatly, and is now seeking to add half a 
million dollars to its endowment. This will place it 
on its feet. The fact that Dr. Pearsons in 1911 freed 
the institution from its obligation to pay him a 
small annuity on a portion of his gifts is an essential 
addition to its income. He did the same for each 
one of the eight colleges which up to this time had 
been sending him an annuity upon the gifts received 
from him. Dr. Race's letter expresses his personal 
feeling for the relief which Chattanooga University 
has received. 

"March 18, 1911. 
"Dear Doctor Pearsons: 

" Thank you very much, indeed, for your kind letter 
that has just reached me. It is certainly most gra- 
cious of you to make the rebate on the annuity pledge. 
I rejoice with you in being able to pay all your pledges. 
What a fine service you have rendered this college! 

"If I can 'round up' the present campaign for 
one-half million dollars we shall then begin to be on 
a sure foundation. It is a terrific strain. It simply 
must be done, though. 

188 



OTHER SOUTHERN COLLEGES 

"If it is at all within the possible I want to greet 
you personally on your ninety-first birthday. May 
heaven's richest blessings be yours. 

With high personal esteem, believe me, 
Faithfully yours, 

(signed) John H. Race." 

To Dr. Daniel K. Pearsons, Hinsdale, 111. 

Washington and Tusculum College, the oldest 
college west of the Alleghanies, was founded by the 
Presbyterians in 1794. It is located at Greenville, 
East Tennessee, and has made for itself an enviable 
record. It has sent one hundred and fifty-five men 
into the ministry and fourteen into the foreign field; 
it has graduated seventy-nine lawyers and three 
governors; it has the names of seventeen judges, 
twenty-eight members of Congress and twenty-two 
college Presidents on its roll of honor; fifty-three 
physicans have been trained within its walls, thirteen 
editors, three railroads presidents and three civil 
engineers ; it has one Admiral of the United States 
Navy to its credit, a chaplain in Congress and two 
hundred and fifty-nine teachers. It has done its 
work on almost no endowment, in a few buildings, 
with a small faculty and with charges for tuition 
even now which seem ridiculously low. Expenses 
for the year are reported today at a minimum of $100 
a year and a maximum of $140. Its holdings are ten 
college buildings, six dwelling-houses, a farm of three 
hundred and fifty acres and an endowment of only 
$100,000.00. No wonder that its history and need 
appealed strongly to a man like Dr. Pearsons who 

189 



LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS 

never fails to appreciate good work and large oppor- 
tunities. 

Under date of November 10, 1910, President C. O. 
Gray writes: 

"Three years ago Dr. Pearsons offered to give 
$25,000.00 on endowment, on condition that $100,- 
000.00 be raised. The amount was raised, and now 
totals a little over $101,000.00. Dr. Pearsons 
very kindly and generously sent us his check for 
$25,000.00. 

"This was the first endowment money our college 
had ever had, and it had a most stimulating and 
healthful effect. Nothing in the history of the insti- 
tution has done it more good. I find it much easier 
to raise money for the college now, because of this 
endowment, and I anticipate that we can raise $200- 
000.00 more endowment next year (as we contem- 
plate doing) much more easily because of this first 
amount secured. 

"We are under lasting gratitude to Dr. Pearsons. 
He was the originator of it all. God bless him." 

Guilford College, located at Guilford, N. C, is a 
prosperous institution cared for by the Friends or 
Quakers. Its student body has always been of the 
finest material. For special reasons Dr. Pearsons 
has taken a deep interest in its welfare. That inter- 
est found expression in a generous gift of money. 
The President of the college, L. L. Hobbs, writes : 

"January 7, 1911. 
"Dr. Pearsons' gift of $25,000.00 was made in 1905. 
It was conditioned upon our raising $75,000.00, 
which we did. The effect was to increase our endow- 

190 



OTHER SOUTHERN COLLEGES 

ment at a very needful time. The gift is in memory 
of Dr. Oliver Woodson Nixon, who was born in 
Guilford County, North Carolina. I have no doubt 
Dr. Pearsons' donation stimulated other friends of 
Guilford and we regard his contribution as most 
helpful and a great favor to Guilford College." 

Piedmont College, Demorest, Georgia, is one of the 
youngest colleges of the state. It was established 
and aided from the first by the American Missionary 
Association (Congregational) with headquarters in 
New York. The college now has an endowment of 
$100,000.00, a few serviceable buildings and a reason- 
able hope of being able very soon to care for itself. 
Dr. Pearsons offered to give $25,000.00 toward an 
endowment as soon as its friends would add $75,- 
000.00 to this sum. After a somewhat protracted 
and very strenuous campaign the conditions were met 
and in October a check was sent for the amount 
promised. 

Rev. Henry C. Newell, Vice-President and Dean 
of the College, writes: 

"Concerning our sense of the value of his gift, it 
may be fair to say that it was worth to us much 
more than the mere money value, because of the fact 
that in raising the amount which was required to 
secure Dr. Pearsons' gift, the College was necessarily 
brought before the public to an extent which perhaps 
might not otherwise have been the case in so short a 
time, and there can be no question but that the con- 
ditions imposed were a stimulus to giving on the 
part of other people and to energetic effort on the 
part of the College authorities." 

191 



LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS 

Kingfisher College, Kingfisher, Oklahoma, the 
only Congregational College in the State, is in the 
center of a fine agricultural region and is easily 
accessible to a very large population. Toward the 
nearly, or quite $200,000.00 endowment of the col- 
lege, Dr. Pearsons has given $50,000.00, $25,000.00 
in January, 1905, and $25,000.00 in July, 1907. Each 
gift was on the condition that it be supplemented by 
a gift of $75,000.00. The early years of the college 
under the Presidency of Rev. J. T. House, were years 
of struggle and self-sacrifice. But the eagerness of 
the students and the appreciation of the work which 
the President and Faculty with such inadequate 
means at command were doing was sufficient reward. 

The outlook was so promising and success already 
gained so great that Mr. House found the effort to 
secure something like an adequate endowment less 
difficult than might have been anticipated. It was 
the confidence that people had in Dr. Pearsons which 
led scores and hundreds of people in all sections of the 
country, and especially in the East, to respond 
favorably to the appeals of this new college. Nor 
was Dr. Pearsons mistaken in his estimate of the 
need of Oklahoma, of just such an institution as King- 
fisher was designed to be. Rev. Calvin B. Moody, 
now President, is doing everything in his power to 
realize the ideals of its founders, and with the aid so 
freely extended to him from many directions, there 
is no reason why this college should not be the larg- 
est and most important in the state. Its influence is 
felt far to the South, and the fact that some of its 

192 




Mrs. D. K. Pearsons 



AID FOR COLLEGES 

tune time for the college. At the very time his offer 
was made, February 28, 1894, we were just reaching 
the worst period of the financial crisis from which the 
whole country was then suffering. Its depressing 
effects were especially severe on the Pacific Coast. 
In the case of the institution our income from 
invested funds was very largely cut off because 
of the inability of people to pay the interest due 
us from loans or the rents from a number of build- 
ings which we owned in Portland. Just before 
this crisis I had secured subscriptions for a new and 
much needed college building, amounting to 
$17,000.00. In addition to this we had $8,000.00 
in the bank which had been secured for this 
purpose. We needed $15,000.00 more to pay 
for this building according to the plans and 
estimates secured. Under the financial conditions 
it was impossible to go further in the way of 
securing subscriptions and the danger was that we 
should lose those we had already secured. In this 
emergency I wrote Dr. Pearsons fully, telling him the 
exact situation, with comparatively little hope that 
he would respond favorably. To my surprise and 
extreme gratification I received from him a letter, 
a copy of which I am enclosing. I had only asked 
him for the $15,000.00 to complete the building, but 
in response to this he made me the larger offer indi- 
cated in his letter. This offer put new heart into the 
management and friends of the institution, and al- 
though the effort to secure the contingent sum of 
$100,000.00 was difficult and slow on account of the 
14 209 



LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS 

financial stringency, his offer of $15,000.00 to com- 
plete the building saved that project and enabled us 
to begin preparations for the construction of the build- 
ing immediately. The securing of subscriptions to 
complete the $100,000.00 was pushed as rapidly as 
the financial conditions of the country would admit, 
and we were finally successful, although the effort cost 
four years of hard and oftentimes discouraging work. 
The National Council which met in Portland in July 
of 1898 adjourned one afternoon, as planned for on 
the program, and went out to Forest Grove to join us 
in celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the founding 
of the institution. It was a great satisfaction to me 
to be able to exhibit from the platform a check for 
$35,000.00 which Dr. Pearsons had sent me just pre- 
viously to complete his gift of $50,000.00. 

"I think it hardly too much to say that this timely 
offer of Dr. Pearsons to give to Pacific University 
$50,000.00 on condition that we should raise an addi- 
tional $100,000.00 saved the institution and put it on 
a permanent basis for continuing with greater success 
the splendid work it had been doing for Oregon and 
the North Pacific Coast for the previous fifty years." 

" Lithia Springs, Ga., Feb. 28, 1894. 

"Prest. McClelland: 

"My rule is to give $50,000.00 to a college if the 
friends of the college will give $150,000.00. Now 
I shall make this offer to you: If you will get the 
friends of Pacific University to give $100,000.00 I 
will give you $50,000.00, and I will give you one year 
to collect the $100,000.00: or it would be better to 

210 



AID FOR COLLEGES 

make the time shorter, and I will say, as soon as you 
get yours, I will give mine. 

D. K. Pearsons." 

(The following was added as a sort of postscript.) 

"private 

No. 2. 

° You say that you have $17,000.00 and $8,000.00 
— $25,000.00. Now you go on and build the building 
and I will send you the $15,000.00 to complete the 
building. As you say that the $17,000.00 was given 
recently by your friends, we will call that $17,000.00 
a part of the $100,000.00 I ask you to get, so that 
you will have to get $84,000.00 fresh money. 

"I will send you three checks of $5,000.00 each, 
say one in June, one in July and one in August, or 
sooner, if you like: but recollect my money is to do 
the last work on the building." 

At the anniversary gathering President McClelland 
read a letter received only two days before from Dr. 
Pearsons. 

"President McClelland: I enclose check for $35,- 

000.00. I want you to hold this check till the 11th of 

July and then give it to your Treasurer. The $50,- 

000.00 I have now given you belongs to the Vermont 

contingency. Atkinson was a schoolmate of mine 

and Marsh was an old friend. Please give me a full 

account of your endowment, so that I can file it 

away with others. I am pleased with your work 

and hope that you will keep the endowment sacred. 

You have worked hard to get it, and I hope it will 

go into perpetuity and do good to the coming 

generations. Truly, 

D. K. Pearsons. 

211 



LIFE OF DR. D. K PEARSONS 

The following resolution prepared by Dr. W. E. 
Barton representing the Education Society was read 
by him at this visit of the Council and was promptly 
and heartily adopted. 

"Resolved, That the delegates and attendants 
of the National Council, gathered at Forest Grove 
on this day when the receipt of a check from Dr. D. K. 
Pearsons completes the $150,000.00 endowment of 
Pacific Unversity, desire to express our gratification 
and that of the churches and schools which we repre- 
sent, in the success of this protracted and heroic 
effort, and our thanks to Dr. Pearsons for this worthy 
and generous gift; and we rejoice with him in the 
rare privilege which he is enjoying of building his 
own large effort into so many of the institutions 
which are to rule the future." 

Pomona College, Claremont, California 

This is the youngest of three colleges which Dr. 
Pearsons has aided on the Pacific Coast. Its growth 
has been more rapid than that of either of the other 
two. This is due to the rapid increase of population 
in Southern California, and to the character of that 
population. Its standards of education are of the 
highly educated communities of the East, so that no 
institutions of lower rank than those to which they 
have been accustomed will satisfy them. It is to 
the credit of a college not yet a quarter of a century 
old that it to so great a degree has won their confi- 
dence. This is due to the fact that its professors 
have been thoroughly educated men and women, 
and have been willing and happy to render a service 

212 



AID FOR COLLEGES 

for which the payment has been very largely in seeing 
what could be done for young people who but for 
their service might never enjoy the advantages of a 
higher education. Its Presidents have been men 
of rare gifts. President Ferguson was a business 
man of unusual ability and foresight. He was skill- 
ful and wise in the selection of his helpers. It was to 
the great advantage of the college that Dr. George 
A. Gates, the well-known and for many years the 
successful President of Iowa College, stood at its 
head for so long a time. For Rev. Dr. James A. 
Blaisdell, recently of Beloit College, son of a college 
professor, brought up in a college atmosphere, yet 
with not a little experience outside of it, who is 
now filling the President's chair, the college has every 
reason to be grateful. In the short time he has been 
President, he has won hosts of friends for the college 
and developed a new spirit among students, faculty 
and trustees. The growth of the college, as the state- 
ment of Professor Sumner, which follows, indicates, 
can be hindered only by lack of buildings and endow- 
ment. That these will come, and before very long 
there is every reason for believing. In aiding this 
college Dr. Pearsons feels that he has done some of 
his best work. It is true here, as in so many other 
instances, that his gifts have saved the college. It is 
the wisdom with which he has distributed his money, 
the timeliness of its gift, its frequent repetition that 
have rendered it so valuable and stimulating. In 
the prosperity of no one of his college children has he 

213 



LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS 

more reason for rejoicing than in that of his youngest 
child on the Western Coast. 

In appreciation of what Dr. Pearsons has done for 
Pomona, President Blaisdell writes: 

"Oct. 19, 1910. 
"Though a new-comer here, it has been impos- 
sible for me not to appreciate the fact that Dr. 
Pearsons' gifts have been of the most vital impor- 
tance to the life of the institution. They have fur- 
nished absolutely indispensable equipment to the 
institution and have come at strategic and critical 
moments. As in so many cases among the colleges, 
these gifts also have been significant in bringing 
other gifts and thus of starting tides of helpfulness 
which, to all human eyes, could not have come with- 
out his generosity. In my judgment Dr. Pearsons' 
gifts have been nothing less than epoch making in the 
history of American education. They have per- 
petuated and amplified the ministry of the small 
college in American education. Whatever the out- 
put of these colleges shall be in future years, it will be 
in no small sense the result of the life work and serv- 
ices of Dr. Daniel K. Pearsons." 

The following statement by Professor C. B. Sum- 
ner, one of the oldest professors in the college and 
a man whose life has been devoted to its interests, 
in regard to Dr. D. K. Pearsons' connection with 
Pomona College is testimony of the first order. 

"An occasional caller at Dr. Pearsons' office could 
not helping getting some impression of the interest 
he took in the institutions he had helped. Such a one, 
if representing some college, soon learned that he had 

214 



AID FOR COLLEGES 

sought every possible contributary source of informa- 
tion and possibly knew more in some directions than 
the representative. It did not take long to realize, 
too, how searching and far reaching his questions 
might be. A representative of Pomona well remem- 
bers what a sensation it was to him that a man who 
had never been to Claremont could know so much 
about the college and the country. 

"It was Pomona's tenth year before Dr. Pearsons 
gave her his first check. In the first years of the 
boom in Southern California he had been to Los 
Angeles and Pasadena, and most likely he was wait- 
ing to be convinced that the college was not mixed up 
in a land speculation. He must first be convinced 
that there was a place for the college, an actual need 
of it before he was willing to help it. Whoever heard 
of a hasty or inconsiderate gift of his to any institu- 
tion! 

"Another marked characteristic of his giving was 
its strategic value. Undoubtedly his whole scheme 
of giving was planned with reference to influencing 
other large givers, and each particular gift was in- 
tended to call out other gifts to the same object. In 
spite of the criticisms of his conditional gifts there 
are few thoughtful persons who will not admit that 
very often, if not always, they have been productive 
of a two-fold good, one to the object, the other to 
givers. 

"But Dr. Pearsons' strategy went still farther. In 
each particular case, frequently at least, there was 
something in the time or place or method which 

215 



LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS 

indicates a thoughtful reference to its particular 
effectiveness. This will appear as the gifts to 
Pomona College are enumerated. 

"The first was in the shape of a $20,000.00 check to 
help on a State canvass for $75,000.00, which was nec- 
essary to meet a conditional proposition. It came at 
a time and in a way greatly to enhance its value. The 
check was exhibited and wonderfully encouraged and 
stimulated the friends of the college so that the con- 
ditions were speedily met. But this was not all. It 
is not easy to overestimate the full effect of the added 
confidence given to a struggling institution, squarely 
meeting the conditions of a large proposition in its 
favor. The subjective feeling of power may be as it 
was in the above case, more helpful by far than the 
object obtained. 

"This strategic gift was soon followed by one 
equally timely, viz., $25,000.00 for a Science Hall. 
The money was judiciously spent and the effect was 
magical. Up to that time only the crudest, most 
cramped and most inconvenient facilities for scien- 
tific work had been possible. The new Science Hall, an 
elegant classical structure of white pressed brick with 
partitions of steel wire and alpine plaster and all the 
modern departmental conveniences, lifted the college 
at once into self respect and made it appeal to a wide 
class of students. The money was no measure of the 
good done. 

"Three years later came the proposition from him 
to give $50,000.00 to endowment, provided the large 
accumulated indebtedness could be all wiped out. 

216 



AID FOR COLLEGES 

"This indebtedness had not been bonded but was 
scattered hither and thither. A note calling for 
payment, now from this direction, now from that, 
kept the college always on the anxious seat. It had 
become an incubus. Dr. Pearsons' proposition wak- 
ened the utmost enthusiasm in the Board of Trustees, 
which quickly spread to the Alumni and amongst 
the churches. The speedy success of the campaign 
was a surprise even to the experienced college presi- 
dents who were on the ground. 

"There followed this movement a period of growth 
wholly unprecedented even in the phenomenal his- 
tory of Pomona. The very rapidity of this growth 
led to a steadily increasing embarrassment which 
it was difficult for Dr. Pearsons and even for the 
Trustees to understand. Prosperity was likely to 
ruin the college. The college is passing through the 
same experience now, just after having added $300,- 
000.00 to its assets. The pressure was never greater 
than it is today, and this increasing embarrassment 
must inevitably continue until the college has what 
the Carnegie standard proclaims the least normal 
endowment — viz., one million dollars. The explana- 
tion is found in part in the college constituency, 
although the great change in college standards has 
something to do with it. This constituency is so 
largely made up of families who have come from 
Eastern homes in the vicinity and under the influ- 
ence of the best Eastern educational institutions and 
such a proportion are graduates that only the best 
institutions and the highest standards satisfy them. 

217 



LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS 

California high schools are reputed the best in the 
country. These patrons have the spirit of the new 
country and are willing to endure crudities only for 
a short time, as a makeshift. Every advance of the 
college brings in a larger proportion of this class and 
their demands are inexorable. Then, too, the com- 
petitive institutions, especially the University of 
California and Leland Stanford University set the 
pace for the highest standards. Yielding just as 
gradually as possible to this imperious demand, the 
crisis came about three years ago when it was abso- 
lutely necessary to make another forward movement. 
The Trustees were led to feel it strongly and Mr. 
Andrew Carnegie was induced to offer $50,000.00 
towards a fund of $250,000.00 for buildings and 
endowment. Dr. Pearsons was in Claremont for the 
winter at the time, saw the need and promptly sub- 
scribed to this end the sum of $25,000.00. After 
studying the situation he felt very strongly the neces- 
sity of a boys' dormitory, and applied his subscription 
to that object. The urgency of the need grew upon 
him day by day until by reason of his insistent pres- 
sure the dormitory, a reinforced concrete building, 
fireproof, for the accommodation of about seventy 
students was ready for occupancy at the commence- 
ment of the next fall term. Whether the money 
given, Dr. Pearsons' hearty interest in the campaign, 
or the dormitory in actual use was the most important 
factor in that canvass may be doubted. Certain it 
is that the canvass was completed, partly under 
President Gates and partly under President Blaisdell, 

218 



AID FOR COLLEGES 

netting the College not only $25,000.00 but more than 
$300,000.00. 

"This large sum should be a great relief to a strug- 
gling college; but as intimated above, it leaves the 
college still embarrassed. The truth is the officers 
of the college realized at the outset that the actual 
need was twice the amount secured, but they were 
obliged to content themselves for a time with the 
smaller sum, looking to the future for another for- 
ward movement. 

"When Dr. Pearsons took up Pomona College it was 
very weak, having hardly a hundred college students, 
and less than $100,000.00 endowment, with only two 
buildings and a small campus. The college constit- 
uency was poor, mostly in debt and small at best. A 
strong friend was indispensable to give it a start and 
tide it over till Southern California should in some 
measure come to its own. Dr. Pearsons' careful 
fostering up to the present time has been invaluable. 
One cannot see how existence would have been pos- 
sible without it. While his gifts have not been so 
large as to some other institutions, they have been 
timely and inspiring. Not yet is the college on a 
permanent self-sustaining basis, and as intimated, 
the present demand is more urgent than at any past 
time. Still there has been great advancement. 
Students in the college department number three 
hundred and twenty-six; the productive endowment 
funds are more than half a million dollars ; the campus 
and parks, while needing a few additions to complete 
the unity, are spacious, one hundred acres, and of 

219 



LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS 

rare fitness, convenience and attractiveness. The 
nine buildings, all are doing excellent service, several 
of them are perfect of their kind. The possibilities 
of growth and the need of expansion are very great. 
The endowment fund should be doubled. The build- 
ings, good or bad, are utterly inadequate to funda- 
mental necessities, with the exception of the Library 
Building, which is elegant, commanding, up-to-date, 
and fire-proof; Science Hall is equally satisfactory, 
but is occupied every hour of the day and evening 
and insufferably crowded at that. Dormitories for 
young women and young men, halls for Y. W. C. A. 
and Y. M. C. A.'s, a gymnasium for young women, a 
Music Hall and an Art Building are badly needed. 

"Southern California is making rapid progress as 
the census report shows and the college constituency 
is increasing and better able to contribute to its funds, 
but its resources have not yet caught up with the 
demands and growth of the college. No one familiar 
with the country questions that the period of such 
adequacy and the intelligence to devote these re- 
sources to such a purpose, are in the near future. Dr. 
Pearsons has certainly hastened the coming of that 
period and is held in high esteem at Pomona." 



220 



XV 



GIFTS TO MISSIONS AND MISSIONARY 
COLLEGES 



XV 

GIFTS TO MISSIONS AND MISSIONARY 
COLLEGES 

PERHAPS nothing indicates more clearly the 
wide outlook of Dr. Pearsons and his intelli- 
gent sympathy with the effort to evangelize 
the world than his gifts to missions. He became 
interested in them very early in his business career 
through his wife, who was an earnest supporter of 
the Woman's Board of Missions of the Presbyterian 
Church, and after their removal to Hinsdale, of the 
Woman's Board of Missions connected with the 
Congregational churches. As representing his wife 
and himself, in 1887 he gave the Presbyterian Women 
twenty thousand dollars of which so much of the 
income was to be used as would be required to sup- 
port two missionaries in the fields under the care of 
the Board, and the remainder as necessities might 
arise. Through their influence, in part at least, 
and with their approval, Miss Julia A. Chapin, a 
sister of Mrs. Pearsons, who had lived with them for 
many years, at her death left the Congregational 
Woman's Board of the Interior more than twenty 
thousand dollars as an endowment, and when the 



LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS 

demand for buildings for Anatolia College in Mar- 
sovan, Turkey, could no longer be put off, gifts from 
Dr. and Mrs. Pearsons secured their erection. This 
was in eighteen ninety-two. As to the timeliness 
of this gift, officials of the American Board as well 
as the faculty of the college have given repeated and 
gratifying testimony. When the Board was hold- 
ing a special meeting in Chicago in 1905, Dr. Pear- 
sons sent to Secretary Patton a letter promising the 
Board fifty thousand dollars toward the endowment 
of the college. He did this because he knew and 
admired its President, Rev. Dr. Tracy, and because 
he felt that any money entrusted to the care of the 
Board would be wisely invested. He had carefully 
studied the field from which the college was drawing 
its students and foresaw the influence which edu- 
cated Christian men and women would have on the 
future of Turkey. But he did not dream of its 
attracting students, as it has done, from Greece or 
Egypt, or the Soudan or Albania, though he did 
think its situation favorable for some influence in 
Russia. What the college with its preparatory 
department, its theological department and its 
hospital has accomplished since its opening in 1886 
under a charter from Massachusetts, and is now 
accomplishing, is told in the following letter from 
one of its Professors, the Rev. G. E. White. 



224 



GIFTS TO MISSIONS 
" Grinnell, Iowa, Sept. 29, 1910. 

"Rev. J. L. Barton, D.D. 
Sec. A. B. C. F. M., Boston. 

"My dear Mr. Barton: — 

"Your favor of the 19th inst. has come to hand, 
and though we are rather busy in arranging to leave 
again for Turkey next week, it is a pleasure to respond 
to your request for an estimate of the value of Dr. 
Pearsons' great gift to Anatolia College. 

"That gift of $50,000.00 provided about one-fifth 
of the endowment needed to carry on the institution 
for its present work. We had about an equal amount 
in the endowment fund before, and this is aside from 
the need for buildings, which is being partially pro- 
vided for at the present time, from other sources. 

"In 22 years, from 1886 to 1908, the College grew 
from the status of the high school, which was 
merged into it at the foundation, to the character of 
a real college, incorporated under the laws of Massa- 
chusetts, and with its diploma recognized by leading 
universities and professional schools in the United 
States and Europe. The original building was 
repeatedly enlarged to accommodate the growing 
needs, and Dr. and Mrs. Pearsons gaveover $20,000.00 
to building and other purposes before the great 
gift to the endowment. The Faculty increased to 
23 men, of whom 8 were Americans (most of us 
being missionaries largely occupied with other 
duties) one Swiss and 14 natives of the country, 
Armenian or Greek gentlemen. Of these last, 8 
had taken special post-graduate study to fit them 
for their positions, having taken their advanced 
courses in Carleton College, Yale University (both 
men receiving the degree of Ph. D.), New College, 
Edinburgh, the University of Berlin, the University 

15 225 



LIFE OF DR. D. K PEARSONS 

of Athens, the Imperial Law School, Constantinople, 
The Royal Conservatory of Music, Stuttgart, and 
the Academy in Paris. These men together make 
a strong Faculty, influential among their people 
outside the college as they are with the students 
within. 

"During these 22 years 224 young men graduated 
of whom 17 are now deceased, while 207 survive. 
There are now 21 preachers, about 10% of the whole 
number; 52 teachers, about 25%, 48 medical men, 
about 25% and 86 in business, about 40%. I can 
count 47 in America, of whom about one-third 
are settled in business, one-third are the various 
professions, and one-third are students. Many of 
these will go back to their native lands later, and 
each is a force among his people in the old country. 
Foreign countries have drawn others: England, 6; 
France, 2; Egypt, 4; the Soudan, 1; Greece, 4; 
Bulgaria, 1. These are mostly in business, but some 
are professional men; all seem to keep up an interest 
in the land of their nativity. Many support students 
in the college, or support schools among their home 
communities. Where the people are poor as they 
are in general in Turkey, and where churches, schools 
and all the institutions of society are yet to be built 
up for the most part, as is also the case, one cannot 
but be glad that there are young men going into 
business to develop the resources of the country, 
benefit the impoverished communities, and foot the 
bills for the improved conditions that are to be. 
One may be glad, too, that with the ordinary tricky 
character of business in the Orient a class of capable 
young men is rising who have high ideals of integrity 
and honor. The market of Mar so van has the repu- 
tation of doing more business and more honest busi- 
ness, than the market of any similar city in the 

226 



GIFTS TO MISSIONS 

region, and this is undoubtedly due to the Protestant 
Church and the college. Besides the graduates 
classified above, more than 1000 other young men 
were for a time students in the institution, but left 
for the usual various reasons without completing 
the course. 

"Meanwhile on July 24, 1908, the Constitution 
and New Regime were proclaimed, and now the 
opportunity before the college was doubled in a day. 
We had the pleasure of hearing Turks addressing 
Turkish audiences, express public thanks for the 
American assistance they had received: thanks for 
such ideas as those of Liberty, the Emancipation of 
Women, Progress for the People, Common School 
Education, and the like. An Ottoman Freedom 
and Progress Club was organized in our town, as 
elsewhere, to form and direct public sentiment, and 
of the administrative council of twelve men, three 
were graduates of Anatolia College, a fourth had 
been for some time a student, and a fifth, like some 
others, was a Protestant. That brought us mis- 
sionaries into very close relations with that body 
which more than any other controlled public opinion 
and events, and we were cordially and frequently 
invited to attend the Club and share in the discus- 
sions. 

"Meanwhile the field of the college has been widen- 
ing. Half of the 29 provinces of the Ottoman Em- 
pire are habitually represented among the students, 
and they come from beyond. Greece always sends 
a small contingent: there are several Albanians: 
Egypt has a part in the student body: now it is the 
turn of Russia. Three years ago two students 
strayed over from across the Black Sea. The next 
year when they came back they brought six more; 
this last year there were twenty; and the end is not 

227 



LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS 

yet. This year for the first time there is instruction 
provided in Russian, and it seems there is a great 
work opening before us for those people who are at 
our doors to the north, and who are looking about 
for light and leading. 

"There are some advantages in our location which 
we have been slow to find out. The Turkish popu- 
lation of the region is among the best to be found. 
They are in general well-disposed and friendly. 
Some have begun to send their sons to the college, 
and more are considering the question. We have 
an admirable climate, and fine premises, just on the 
edge of the city. Back of the campus the moun- 
tains rise to a height of 6000 feet. The population 
about are largely of the middle class, being neither 
very rich, nor sunk in helpless poverty. We have 
the advantage of being near the Black Sea, yet free 
from certain disadvantages of an actual coast town 
in the Levant. There is no institution that could 
be called a rival near in any direction, while the 
local communities are making strenuous efforts to 
improve their institutions in order to retain their 
constituents. 

"Our students get a good use of the English lan- 
guage, and take their advanced lessons through 
this medium. They are in general studious, cour- 
teous and tractable. They come because they and 
their parents believe in the moral character of the 
institution. The Bible is taught as regularly as any 
other lesson, and receives reverent attention. Preach- 
ing services are maintained on Sundays, as well as the 
Sunday school, and the Y. M. C. A. is active and 
helpful. Most of the students belong by birth to 
one or another of the Oriental Churches, though 
from one-fourth to one-third are Protestants. It 
is only a question of time and method when these 



GIFTS TO MISSIONS 

Oriental Churches are to follow the State through 
a period of Reformation, or they cannot hold their 
congregations. Many of our young men who can- 
not bring themselves to break away from their 
Mother Church, look forward with ardor to the time 
when they will have an opportunity to share in move- 
ments for reform from within. 

"College charges are kept as low as possible, — 
$66.00 per year, for tuition, board, lodging, laundry, 
fuel and bath. Some, however, cannot meet even 
these low figures, and a Self Help Department is 
maintained accordingly, whereby about one-third 
of the students are enabled to earn some part of 
their school dues. They work in the large carpenter 
shop, or the book bindery, or wait on table or sweep 
the floors. The impoverishing or pauperizing of the 
young men themselves is thus avoided, the dignity 
of labor maintained, and useful trades are mastered. 

"It would be easy to take individual students, or 
graduates, and dwell on the meaning of their educa- 
tion, but space is limited. Here is a college professor, 
there is a pastor of a large congregation, yonder a 
pioneer evangelist; one is a doctor, laying the foun- 
dations of medical science among people who have 
confused medicine and magic hitherto; another has 
an American education as a dentist; another is a 
silk manufacturer; one is in the employ of an Amer- 
ican wholesale farm implement house; another is a 
graduate in engineering; another has quietly applied 
chemistry to the old crude methods of dyeing and 
is at the same time a leader in all work pertaining 
to the church. There are failures among our young 
friends but the percentage of success, as such things 
are reckoned by the best standards, is remarkably 
high. The joy of it is, that fraternal effort from 
America is met fully half way, and that we may 

229 



LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS 

cooperate on the basis of the Gospel of Jesus with 
the best people and the best efforts of the country, 
where everybody is breaking with his past, and is 
seeking for something worthy in life. 

"The question is often asked whether the Young 
Turk Movement can last. The best answer is, that 
it has passed safely through three periods of stress 
already. The first was in July, 1908, when the 
Revolution was effected; the second came in April, 
1909, when the forces of Reaction were met and over- 
come; the third was in the Spring of 1910 when 
Rebellion within, as led by the untutored Albanians, 
was suppressed. Every day that the New Regime 
holds is a day to the good. 

"The College Seal and Motto represent the actual 
scene from the front door, the sun rising over a moun- 
tain chain, with the words, which are suggested by 
the name Anatolia, The Morning Cometh. 

"Perhaps I should have dwelt more specifically on 
what Dr. Pearsons' gift accomplished. But it really 
fitted into what was already being done, relieved 
the Board in part and is hardly to be distinguished 
in its use from the other funds and resources of the 
College, though of course these funds were swelled 
by the annual interest from the gift. We are glad 
such funds are held by the Board for safety of invest- 
ment, and the interest employed with the other 

resources. c . , 

bmcerely yours, 

G. E. White." 

Anatolia College is situated on a plain about 2500 
feet above sea-level. It is seventy -five miles south 
of Samsoun, its sea port on the Black Sea, and is 350 
miles east of Constantinople. It is the only college 
of high grade in a region of 80,000 square miles and 

230 



GIFTS TO MISSIONS 

containing hardly less than ten million people. The 
population of the city of Marsovan is about 30,000, 
and yet the expense for board and tuition is less than 
seventy dollars a year. The department of Self 
Help renders it possible for any young person anxious 
for an education to attend the college and meet his 
expenses. Yet in spite of the low price charged for 
tuition and board nearly or quite two-thirds of the 
income of the college is obtained from this source. 
The growth of the college has been gradual but 
satisfactory and the outlook leads one to believe 
that its motto, "The Morning cometh" has been 
well chosen. 

So well pleased was the Doctor with his gifts to 
missions that he determined that his last hundred 
thousand dollars should be set aside for the support 
of the educational department of the American Board. 
He had been thinking of doing this for many months, 
but only a few weeks before the centennial meeting 
in Boston, decided finally to make the gift. When 
the telegram to Secretary Barton was read announc- 
ing his decision, the audience could not restrain its 
applause. Dr. Barton himself reports the scene and 
the effect of the gift, in a letter to Dr. Pearsons, 
which is full of the spirit of the occasion, and is too 
good to be abbreviated. 

«Db. D. K. Pearsons, "October 17, 1910. 

Hinsdale, Illinois. 
"My dear Dr. Pearsons: — 

"We have been so tied up with our Anniversary 
services that I have been unable to write any letters. 

231 



LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS 

My correspondence has been by telegram. We did 
get an opportunity to send you a telegram expressing 
our great joy and satisfaction at your telegram which 
came on Monday. Your letter came also in due 
time and was, of course, presented to the great 
Assembly. I wish you could have been present 
and seen them almost raise the roof. The whole 
audience rose when your telegram was read and 
sang 'All Hail The Power of Jesus' Name.' It 
was necessary for them in some way to express the 
gratitude and appreciation which they felt to you 
for this great and noble gift to the American Board. 
It is already opening channels of approach to others, 
and as I wired you, I believe that we shall be able 
to match your hundred thousand with twenty other 
sums of equal amount before many months have 
passed. You will never know the extent of the 
influence of this gift, and while it is not conditioned 
we are going to make that money earn more than 
any hundred thousand dollars you ever gave. It 
is a great thing to be the recipient of your last great 
gift, and I assure you that we appreciate it. The 
Lord raised you up for one of the greatest services 
that it has been permitted men to perform in this 
world ! 

"I want to take violent exception to a statement 
in your letter that 'On my next birthday I shall 
close up my work.' Do you suppose that you can 
ever close up your work? You may give away all 
that which you have earned, but you will not close 
up your work ! Your work is going on in the colleges 
of this country and in the colleges abroad for a thou- 
sand years and more, — multiplying in momentum and 
power. But more than this your work is going on 
here in this country. You have established a new 
principle of giving, set up a new standard, and many 

232 



GIFTS TO MISSIONS 

of whom you have never seen and of whom you will 
never hear, are taking their inspiration from your 
magnificent example and are giving liberally and 
with an abandon which they never would have done, 
had they not had before them your twenty-one 
years of princely giving. That is your work that 
is going on and is to go on forever, and you cannot 
stop it. So please do not think of closing up your 
work. You cannot do it if you would. You would 
not do it if you could. 

"How can I find words to express the gratitude 
which we of the American Board feel that you have 
thus helped on the education of the growing mind 
of the East as it is struggling out into the world 
influence and power! This money will go as far 
in bringing to those young people of the East the 
fundamental principles of Western education and 
Christian civilization as a million dollars would go 
in this country for the same number. We shall 
not fail to pray that your life may be greatly pro- 
longed to see the fruit of the splendid work you have 
started. 

I remain, 

Very sincerely yours, 
James L. Barton." 

In thus putting nearly or quite two hundred 
thousand dollars, from first to last, into the work of 
Foreign Missions, without any other conditions than 
that the income of the money be used for educational 
purposes and as the officers of the Boards having it 
in charge shall direct, Dr. Pearsons has shown his 
confidence in the wisdom of these officers and his 
belief in the work they are trying to do. Through 

233 



LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS 

his last gift he will have a share in the training of 
young people in nearly every part of the world, and 
become almost as well known in the mission fields 
of the American Board as he now is in the United 
States. 



234 



LIST OF COLLEGES AIDED BY DR. PEARSONS 



Anatolia, Marsovan, Turkey. 
Berea, Ky. 

Bethany, West Virginia. 
Carleton, Northfield, Minn. 
Coe, Cedar Rapids, Iowa. 
Colorado, Colorado Springs, Colo. 
Deer Lodge, Montana. 
Doane, Crete, Neb. 
Drury, Springfield, Mo. 
Fairmount, Wichita, Kansas. 
Fargo, N. Dakota. 
German, Dubuque, Iowa. 
Grant University, Chattanooga, 

Term. 
Guilford, N. C. 
Hastings, Neb. 
Huron, S. Dakota. 
Illinois, Jacksonville, 111. 
Kingfisher, Okla. 
Knox, Galesburg, 111, 
Lake Forest, 111. 
Lawrence University, Appleton, 

Wis. 
Marietta, Ohio. 



Marysville, Tenn. 

McKendree, Lebanon, 111. 

Middlebury, Vt. 

Mt. Holyoke, South Hadley, Mass. 

Newberry, S. C. 

Northwestern University, Evans- 
ton, 111. 

Olivet, Michigan. 

Pacific University, Forest Grove, 
Oregon. 

Park College, Parkville, Mo. 

Piedmont, Demorest, Ga. 

Pomona, Claremont, Cal, 

Ripon, Wis. 

Rollins, Winter Park, Fla. 

Sheridan, Wyoming, 

Tahoe, Caldwell, Idaho. 

Tabor, Iowa. 

Washington and Tusculum, Wash- 
ington County, Tenn. 

Washburn, Topeka, Kansas. 

Whitman, Walla Walla, Washing- 
ton. 

Yankton, S. Dakota. 



THEOLOGICAL SEMINARIES AIDED 
Chicago, 111. McCormick, Chicago, 111. 

SECONDARY SCHOOLS AIDED 



Montpelier Seminary, Vt. 
Onarga, 111. 



Westminster School, Vt. 
West Virginia Conference Semi- 
nary, Buckhannon, W. Va. 



235 



XVI 

APPRECIATIVE WORDS 



XVI 
APPRECIATIVE WORDS 

FOR expressions of thanks Dr. Pearsons has 
never looked. He has not been indifferent to 
them, has been grateful when they have come, 
but has not sought them. He has distributed his 
fortune with a sense of responsibility to "that 
good Providence" from which he says it came. 
With the approval of his own conscience and the 
consciousness that he has carried out, so far as he 
could, the will of God he has been satisfied. Yet 
people who have received gifts from his generous 
hand, and those who are deeply interested in the 
causes to which he has devoted his fortune, have 
not failed to express in manifold ways their appre- 
ciation of the work he has accomplished during a 
period of more than a score of years. 

The words that follow are taken from letters 
written at different times, and from resolutions 
passed by different bodies on various occasions. 
They are only samples of hundreds, perhaps thou- 
sands, which might be given. 

Mr. Andrew Carnegie writes : — 



LIFE OF DR. D. K PEARSONS 

"You cannot say anything too good of Pearsons.* ' 
Of his charity, its forms and conditions, he adds, 
"It is the best line of benevolence ever made in 
America." 

Secretary J. L. Barton of the American Board 
of Commissioners for Foreign Missions in sending 
congratulations on Dr. Pearsons' eighty-eighth 
birthday says, "We appreciate the wonderful 
things you have done, and are doing. That a man 
88 years young should have an interest in great 
movements as you have, is a marvel indeed"; yet 
no marvel, if we remember that to him every morn- 
ing the mail was bringing from one hundred to two 
hundred letters, with information from all parts of 
the world. 

President J. A. B. Scherer of Newberry College, 
S. C, a Lutheran, writes: "His gifts are the 
most profitable investments in the world. He is 
more deeply interested in the cause of Christian 
education than any other man I ever saw. He 
is the happiest old man I ever saw, and his 
happiness is not a whit sanctimonious. He be- 
lieves that to turn unprofitable men into profit- 
able manhood is the best investment in the 
world. One of the finest things in this strong and 
noble life is the way in which it has influenced 
others." 

Similar testimony is borne by President Lewis 
E. Holden of Wooster University, for a long 
time the financial agent of Beloit College, and a 
man to whose enthusiastic, self-denying service 

240 



APPRECIATIVE WORDS 

in gathering funds to meet the conditions imposed 
by Dr. Pearsons, that college is deeply indebted. 
He writes from Beloit itself, on commencement 
day, June 11, 1908. . . . "You have certainly 
done a great work. Your life is going to tell cen- 
turies after you have gone to your everlasting 
reward. . . . All our hearts go out to you in 
thanksgiving for what you have so wisely done for 
our own alma mater." 

President James of the University of Illinois, 
June 28, 1909, writes: "You have certainly 
built a great monument to yourself and your family 
while doing a great service to the people of your 
country." 

A characteristic letter from the Hon. John Eaton, 
under date of April 8, 1900, then Commissioner of 
Education may be given entire. 

"Father of Colleges. 

My dear Doctor: — Yours of the 7th came duly at 
hand. I thank you heartily. Would that all the 
money given to colleges were given with the care 
that yours is. My 16 years of service as U. S. 
Commissioner of Education has given me special 
familiarity with the localities and enterprises which 
you have aided, and aside from other merits there 
is a strategic bearing in them which I also admire." 

Following one of his large gifts to Berea College 

in April, 1899, Governor Bradley of Kentucky, 

wrote: "I cannot refrain from writing to thank 

you from the bottom of my heart. Berea is doing 

16 241 



LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS 

a great work among a section of our people which 
needs the work, and which will respond to it 
a hundred fold, for the mountain whites have 
splendid stuff in them." The same month ex- 
President Roosevelt, then Governor of New York, 
wrote in similar vein. In fact this gift called 
forth expressions of grateful appreciation from 
almost every section of the country. It was 
about this time that in reviewing the work of Dr. 
Pearsons an editorial writer in the New York World 
said, "For a level-headed philanthropist commend 
me to Dr. Pearsons of Chicago, who not only makes 
his benefactions to the cause of education during 
his lifetime, but who lays down the rule that his 
money is not to go to the rich colleges, which do not 
need it, but to the poor struggling institutions which 
are just as valuable as the wealthy schools. Dr. 
Pearsons is as wise and judicious as he is generous 
and unselfish." 

In March, 1900, the representatives of South Da- 
kota in Washington, D. C, sent Dr. Pearsons a 
letter of hearty thanks for what he had done for 
Yankton College. 

On receipt of a check for $5,000.00 for Ripon 
College, Wisconsin, President Merrill wrote, Febru- 
ary 24, 1900, "I actually believe you have been the 
wisest large giver I ever knew, or ever heard of. 
You have made what you have given tell for the 
most at the very centers of moral and intellectual 
force, and you have put your money where it will 



APPRECIATIVE WORDS 

be working for long generations after we who are 
now living have passed away." 

At the end of a severe and protracted struggle to 
meet the conditions upon which Dr. Pearsons gave 
Drury College, Springfield, Missouri, $25,000.00, 
Dr. Homer T. Fuller, then President, wrote: 
"Yours with enclosed check for $25,000.00 was 
received this morning just before chapel exercises. 
After these were over I announced the receipt of 
the sum which was the culmination of our efforts 
for this endowment. The applause was followed 
by a rising vote of thanks to you and the college 
cheer. May God bless you and grant you many 
years more to see the fruitage of your labors and 
of your royal benevolence." It was during the 
Presidency of Dr. Fuller that the foundations of 
Drury were greatly strengthened and the interest 
of Dr. Pearsons through him and Dr. Henry Hopkins 
then of Kansas City, later President of Williams 
College, Massachusetts, aroused in its behalf. The 
reception which he and Mrs. Pearsons received on 
their visit to the college brought forth from the Doc- 
tor one of his most eloquent and effective addresses 
and gave him an experience of which he often speaks 
as one of the happiest and most satisfying of his 
life. 

It was when on a visit to some of the colleges he 
had aided, that on April 5, 1902, he stopped over at 
Springfield, Illinois, and made his way into the 
State House. He was quickly discovered and taken 
into the Hall of Representatives and introduced 



LIFE OF DR. D. K PEARSONS 

to its members by Speaker Sherman, after which 
the following resolution was read and unanimously 
adopted amid great enthusiasm: 

"Whereas we have with us a visitor on the floor 
of this House this morning, Dr. D. K. Pearsons of 
Chicago, the distinguished philanthropist and lib- 
eral patron of education, than whom no other Amer- 
ican has done greater or more practical work for 
the advancement of education, particularly in the 
way of aiding the worthy smaller institutions, whose 
peculiar province is to make possible the education 
and training of the young people who struggle 
against poverty and adverse conditions, and who 
after heroic struggle make the staunchest warp and 
woof of the social fabric . . . and 

"Whereas we recognize that in the munificent 
practical benefactions of Doctor Pearsons a work 
has been accomplished which will make mightily 
for the uplifting of humanity for all time to come. 

"Therefore Be it resolved by this House that in 
appreciation of the great life work of this distin- 
guished benefactor we honor his presence here this 
morning by the adoption of this resolution by a 
rising vote." 

This was quickly done and the Doctor was then 
conducted to the rostrum by the Chaplain, where 
among other things in an impromptu but very 
effective address he said: 

"You have passed a resolution today that does 
me more good than anything I ever had done for 
me before. I made my money in the State of Illinois, 
honestly and squarely. I am using that money while 
I am alive. I don't want any inheritance tax on 

244 



APPRECIATIVE WORDS 

my property when I am gone. I am using the money 
instead to educate and bring up poor boys and girls. 
I am for the boy behind the plow. That is the boy 
I am after. And I say to you gentlemen of this 
assembly that there is no business a man ever en- 
gaged in that will compare with the business I am 
doing, and to be approved by you gives me great 
satisfaction. 

"Gentlemen, I sincerely and heartily thank you, 
and I shall keep right on in the way I am doing, 
lifting up the poor. I never give to the rich. I am 
for the poor boys and girls. The smartest girl in 
the curriculum of the colleges I am helping is a day- 
laborer's daughter, the smartest boy is a teamster's 
boy. I want to give those boys and girls a chance. 
Gentlemen, I thank you." 

A letter from Mr. Wallace Butterick, Secretary 
of the Rockefeller Fund of General Education 
Board, sets forth in fitting terms the appreciation in 
which Dr. Pearsons is held by thoughtful men. He 
writes from New York, under date of April 10, 1911 : 

"I share the high appreciation which all thought- 
ful people entertain for the character and work of 
Dr. Pearsons. He has given us a noble example 
of how best to employ one's means for the promo- 
tion of the public welfare and the enhancing of 
personal happiness. I met him one day at Hinsdale, 
and it seemed to me that I never met a happier man. 

"I believe in State Universities and that they have 
rendered noble service in many of our states. I 
believe also in the privately endowed college. The 
several Christian communions of our country have 
rendered service of incalculable value in founding 
and maintaining, as they have done, most of our 

245 



LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS 

leading colleges. It is greatly to the honor of Dr. 
Pearsons that he long ago recognized that fact and 
has contributed so largely to the prosperity of so 
many of these institutions." 

That Dr. Pearsons was thankful for the apprecia- 
tion which these representatives of the state expressed 
admits of no doubt, for while he never sought public- 
ity in his gifts, and cared little for notoriety, he 
would have been more than human not to take 
pleasure in the approval of his fellow-men. 

As a type of resolutions passed by many of the 
colleges aided by Dr. Pearsons one adopted by 
Beloit College on the Doctor's ninetieth birthday, 
and one that touched him deeply, may here be 
given. It is dated Beloit, Wisconsin, April 19,1910. 

"The ninetieth birthday of Dr. D. K. Pearsons, 
celebrated five days ago, is one of those events which 
erect beacons on the shores of human life, to illumi- 
nate and guide. It is fitting that we, to whom are 
committed the interests of an institution which 
has shared so richly in his gifts, should put on record 
our appreciation of Dr. Pearsons' wide benefactions 
and our gratitude for what he has done for Beloit. 
As we review his extraordinary contributions to the 
welfare of humanity we are impressed by the fol- 
lowing elements in his personality and his career. 

"Dr. Pearsons' profound conviction of the impor- 
tance in a republic of the right training of mind and 
character. 

"Dr. Pearsons' recognition that the moral and 
246 



APPRECIATIVE WORDS 

religious elements in education are its essential and 
permanent factors. 

"Dr. Pearsons' catholic spirit, superior to the 
claims of any sect or denomination. 

"Dr. Pearsons' discovery of making large benefac- 
tions so conditioned as to stimulate instead of dimin- 
ishing the efforts of those responsible for an institu- 
tion, and to multiply instead of lessening the number 
of its cooperating friends. 'No one man college' 
has been his consistent attitude. Mr. Carnegie 
and the General Education Board have acknowledged 
his wisdom and followed his lead. Dr. Pearsons, 
it is hardly too much to say, has assured the future 
of the American college. Concerning it, President 
Lowell of Harvard says : 'It has a great work to do 
for American people. For that work Dr. Pearsons 
has reanimated it and re-impowered it.' 

"Dr. Pearsons has set a new standard and pace of 
giving, and has been the means of securing from 
others several times the number of millions which 
he has himself contributed to the institutions so near 
his heart, besides stimulating unmeasured gifts to 
other objects. 

"Dr. Pearsons has been an inspiring genius of 
Beloit College, and its second founder. By his 
aid it has been lifted to a commanding position of 
reputation and influence. When we think back to 
Beloit, as it was when he first put his strong hand 
to its helm, and remember his share in its every 
forward movement, we are deeply impressed with 
what we owe to his wisdom and his benefactions, 

247 



LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS 

the results of which, already so notable will widen 
with the ages yet to be. 

"Dr. Pearsons' personal qualities have fitted him 
in eminent degree for leadership in the great cause 
to which he has devoted himself. Severe, but 
never unfeeling, critical, but never failing in high 
enthusiasm; his feet on the ground of hard fact, 
but his imagination at home in worlds unrealized, 
scorning pretence, but honoring honest effort, and 
an almost passionate friend of the struggling poor; 
of imperious will, but believing in men of will as 
resolute as his own; abhorring cant and religious 
pretenses, but loving to discern a Providential 
guidance in the events of life; as unmoved by en- 
treaty as is the headland by the wave that beats 
against it, yet giving himself like the reserves of an 
army to save a hard fought day, he is greeted as a 
general in the campaign of more than a score of 
years, where victory has meant uplift, progress, 
enlightenment and faith in God and man. 

"It is a marvellous thing that one man's life should 
have included such opportunities, of such service 
and such wealth of achievement. May future 
years bring to our honored friend ever richer results 
from his benefactions and ever fuller joy. 

"(Signed on behalf of the Board of Trustees of 
Beloit College, by its President Edward D. Eaton 
and its Secretary, E. B. Kilbourn.)" 

Gifts to other colleges have been not less timely 
or valuable than those to Beloit and from them 



APPRECIATIVE WORDS 

similar resolutions of appreciation and gratitude 
have not failed to come. To one who can look back 
over the years to the conditions described in an 
earlier chapter, the changes brought about in the 
state of feeling toward the small Christian college 
seems well-nigh revolutionary. 

Colleges would have been glad to honor him with 
titles but for the most part have refrained from 
heaping them upon him. With the exception of 
an LL. D. from Rollins College, Florida, no peculiar 
college distinctions have been conferred upon him. 
He has been called C. B. (College Builder), C. F. 
(College Founder), and in these titles he has had 
real pleasure. In another he would be equally well 
pleased were there a suitable term for it, — Teacher 
of the Sacredness of Endowments. The three letters 
T. S. E. would suit him quite as well as the three 
which indicate that he is Doctor of Laws. 

But no better illustration of the regard which is 
felt for Dr. Pearsons in or about Chicago and in 
many other parts of the country, can be given than 
is furnished by the gathering at Hinsdale Sanitarium, 
Hinsdale, Illinois, April 14, 1911, in recognition of 
his ninety -first birthday. The gathering was ar- 
ranged by Dr. W. E. Barton of Oak Park, in confer- 
ence with Dr. Paulson of the Sanitarium. Many peo- 
ple from the village as well as from the city were pres- 
ent at the informal gathering in the parlors of the 
Sanitarium which followed the lunch which a few 
intimate friends had taken as guests of the Doctor. 
One of the more than eighty telegrams which up to 

249 



LIFE OF DR. D. K PEARSONS 

noon of that day had been received, was from John 
D. Rockefeller, and reads thus: "Dr. D. K. Pear- 
sons, Hinsdale. I rejoice in all of your good deeds. 
The world is made better by your beautiful ex- 
ample of giving so generously of your substance 
for the benefit of your fellow men. I congratulate 
you on your ninety -first birthday and wish you 
many happy returns of the same. The Lord bless 
you and keep you in health and happiness." There 
were telegrams from Governor Deneen of Illinois, 
and many other very distinguished men. The let- 
ters were full of personal expressions of esteem and 
affection. Congratulations in one way or another 
came from the President of every college which 
had been aided, and from a representative of every 
association to which he had made gifts. The ad- 
dresses at the public gathering were necessarily few 
and brief. Dr. F. A. Noble, so many years pastor 
of Union Park, Dr. J. C. Armstrong, Secretary of 
the City Missionary Society, Dr. A. N. Hitchcock, 
Secretary of the American Board of Commissioners 
for Foreign Missions, to whom was handed a check 
for one hundred thousand dollars for the educational 
work of the Board, Dr. O. S. Davis, President of 
the Chicago Theological Seminary, President W. G. 
Frost of Berea College, Kentucky, had part in these 
exercises, Dr. Simeon Gilbert spoke briefly and ten- 
derly, and presented a minute which he had pre- 
pared, and which had been accepted as an expression 
of the feeling of the members of the Congregational 
Club, Dr. Paulson, owner and manager of the Sani- 

250 



APPRECIATIVE WORDS 

tarium, welcomed the visitors to its hospitality 
and Rev. E. F. Williams was permitted to say that 
he counted it one of the chief privileges of his life 
to have known Dr. Pearsons and to have been hon- 
ored with his friendship. In introducing the dif- 
ferent speakers Dr. Barton spoke several times and 
with great felicity. But the climax came when Dr. 
Pearsons himself rose to reply and to express his 
appreciation of the sympathy he had received from 
such an army of friends, and his gratitude to the 
Press for the assistance it had given him from the 
beginning without whose aid he doubted if he could 
have accomplished his work. He said that he had 
prepared an address for the public and now that he 
had completed the task he had set before him, and 
had no more money to give away, he would retire 
to private life and enjoy the quiet and repose which 
he so much needed. The words of farewell which 
were spoken as one and another took the hand of the 
venerable philanthropist were tender and affection- 
ate. Such a day as this is a rare experience in the 
life of any one, rarer still when it comes after 
twenty-two years of as strenuous effort rightly to 
dispose of property as had been put forth in acquir- 
ing it. 

In his tribute to his wife, Dr. Pearsons said: 

"As I look back on the last twenty-two years, I 
realize that none of my gifts would have been possi- 
ble without my wife. It was she who taught me 
how to make the money and endued me with the 
spirit of philanthropy. To her I owe everything, 

251 



LIFE OF DR. D. K PEARSONS 

and my advice would be to every young man who 
wants to start on the road to fortune and wealth, to 
marry.'' 

The last gift which Dr. Pearsons made was in 
some respects his best gift. It was the transfer of 
the house in which he had lived for nearly thirty 
years, together with the extensive grounds by which 
it is surrounded, to his fellow-citizens in Hinsdale 
for a Library. It was his first thought that the 
house could be used for a library building as its 
rooms are large and high, and its foundations very 
strong. In that case the building in which books 
and pictures and objects of art were stored would 
have been a perpetual reminder of Dr. and Mrs. 
Pearsons. But as the house is rather too far from 
the center of the village for easy access it was deemed 
best that the property should be sold and its pro- 
ceeds devoted to library purposes. A suitable build- 
ing will be erected on a central site and the proceeds 
obtained from the sale of the Pearsons home used 
for the library as the committee in charge shall 
deem best. The gift is highly appreciated by the 
people of Hinsdale. 



252 



XVII 
RETROSPECT 



XVII 

RETROSPECT 

NO ONE can deny, and Dr. Pearsons himself 
cannot fail to recognize the fact, that his 
life has been a peculiar and a very remarkably 
useful life. Each section of it presents prominent 
characteristics. Self-denying efforts which devel- 
oped a strong will were manifest while struggling 
for an education. The half dozen years of profes- 
sional life, while full of ambition for success as a 
physician, an ambition more than gratified, were 
years in which efforts were made to stimulate the 
intellectual and moral life of the community in 
which he lived. Then came the business period, 
thirty years of it, from 40 to 70 spent in Chicago, in 
which the one aim was to make money. Since 
reaching three score and ten the all controlling pur- 
pose has been wisely to distribute the fortune which 
an over-ruling Providence had permitted this earn- 
est business man to acquire. Thus each period of 
his life has had its ruling purpose. In each period 
there has been a clear and definite aim from which 
no deviation has been allowed. If it is with the 
last period of this life that the public is most f amil- 

255 



LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS 

iar, it is worth while to remember that the founda- 
tions of the character of the man those who know him 
so much honor, were laid in young manhood, strength- 
ened in professional and business life and thus made 
ready for the superstructure which has been reared 
upon them during these later years. 

Few men, however great their anxiety to do so, 
have had the privilege granted to Dr. Pearsons, 
of distributing their fortune in their own lifetime. 
Still more rare is this privilege when that fortune 
is counted by millions rather than by thousands, 
and when as much care is exercised in its distribu- 
tion as was required for its acquisition. For twenty- 
two years Dr. Pearsons has devoted himself wholly 
to a consideration of the needs of the educational 
field of America. True he has given large sums 
to objects not generally classed as educational, yet 
it will be seen when closely scrutinized that even 
these objects exert an educational influence on the 
people. This is certainly the case with gifts to the 
Y. M. C. A., to the Historical Society, the Academy 
of Science, the Orchestra Association, the Art Insti- 
tute of Chicago, and to the Presbyterian Hospital 
to which he has made large contributions and in 
which he has provided free beds for needy theologi- 
cal students. 

For a man who gives conscientiously, with a sense 
of responsibility to God, in comparatively small 
sums, and under conditions designed in part to test 
the worthiness of the object to receive aid, the dis- 
tribution of a fortune of several millions calls for a 

256 



RETROSPECT 

great deal of wisdom. The difficulty is in placing 
money where it will really do the most good, where 
it is most needed, even if the results hoped for be 
long in appearing. That Dr. Pearsons has recog- 
nized this difficulty and has successfully met it, 
not many will deny. That some colleges, and 
objects of charity worthy in themselves, have been 
refused aid is true. But the refusal has come from 
no prejudice against them, but from the conviction 
that money would be better invested elsewhere. 
To set aside these appeals, made as they have been 
by some of the most eminent men in the country, 
has called for a firmness of will not many possess. 
To give wisely is a science. The principles of this 
science can be applied only after careful study, 
prolonged meditation, much correspondence, and 
not a little travel. Dr. Pearsons has never given 
hastily. Nor has he spared himself the labor, men- 
tal and physical which almost daily requests for 
aid have made necessary. His years of philan- 
thropy have been his busiest years. More difficult 
problems have been presented to him for solution 
since he began to dispense his fortune, than in all 
the years of his previous life. The conditions on 
which his gifts have been made have called for care- 
ful thought in nearly every instance. Not infre- 
quently the time granted for their fulfillment has 
been extended, and sometimes efforts have been 
made at his suggestion through the press and by 
individuals to create a public sentiment in favor of 
meeting these conditions. Patience, persistency, 
17 257 



LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS 

courage, hopefulness, have not been wanting on 
the part of the giver, when he saw that without these 
qualities his conditions would not be met. The 
pledges he made he looked upon as debts which it 
would be a privilege to pay. A good example of 
his desire to have his conditions met is furnished in 
the history of Montpelier Conference Seminary. 

Gifts have never been made for the sake of noto- 
riety. If Dr. Pearsons has been willing that the 
public should know how much he has given, and 
under what conditions, it has been from the con- 
viction that men and women of wealth would learn 
through these reports what he was doing, and might 
be led to follow his example, and while yet living, 
invest some of their money where it cannot fail to 
be permanently useful. Testimony has come to 
him again and again that in this respect his wishes 
have been met. The gifts of Dr. Pearsons have all 
had reference to the future as well as to the present. 
A feeble college in a field already occupied, or under 
unfortunate management has appealed to him in 
vain. In fashionable or money-making institutions 
he has taken no interest. But no matter how small 
the college, if it has been wisely managed, is well 
located, has a Christian atmosphere and a reasonable 
promise of growth, he has willingly aided. For in 
such colleges, strong, manly, patriotic, Christian 
character can be developed. Absolutely tolerant, 
one might say, almost indifferent so far as denomi- 
nation is concerned, Dr. Pearsons has not felt 
himself at liberty to aid a college where the Bible 

258 



RETROSPECT 

finds no place in the curriculum, or where the pro- 
fessors fail to inculcate the principles of the New 
Testament in their classrooms. 

A glance at the list will show the wisdom with 
which he has made his gifts to colleges. Three on 
the western coast, Whitman, Pacific University, 
Pomona, are making their influence felt in the three 
great states of Washington, Oregon and California. 
Mark well the location of the colleges aided in the 
Middle West, in the region between the Rockies 
and embracing Oklahoma. Special reasons have 
called for help for a college in Michigan, one in 
Ohio, one in Massachusetts, and for two institutions 
in the giver's native state, Vermont. In the South, 
institutions in the Carolinas, Western Virginia, 
Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia and Florida have 
profited from his benevolence. In every instance 
these gifts have met pressing necessities, and nearly 
always, have not only saved the college, but given 
it an impulse which has proved to be the beginning 
of a new era in its history. To scatter gifts thus 
widely, in proper sums, under conditions which 
could be met and which when met would prove as 
valuable as the money secured, has called for execu- 
tive or administrative ability of the highest order. 

It may be asked, if at the beginning of his philan- 
thropic career, Dr. Pearsons had in mind the wide, 
all-embracing plan he has since followed. To this 
question a negative answer must be returned. Dr. 
Pearsons did not at first realize the importance of 
the work he had begun. Its importance grew upon 

259 



LIFE OF DR. D. K PEARSONS 

him year by year. Year by year his knowledge of 
the value of Christian colleges to the country in- 
creased till he finally saw that they had filled a great 
place in its educational system, and that with the 
aid he could give them and secure for them, their 
power for good would in the future be far greater 
than in the past. But this knowledge came grad- 
ually. It came to him as it would come to any 
other man with an open mind. He gave to a single 
college, not knowing that he would ever give to 
another college. He gave because he saw that his 
gift was indispensable, and would do good. Then 
he saw another college as needy and with promise 
of usefulness as great as the one he had just assisted. 
Thus the field of benevolence opened before him 
till it extended from ocean to ocean, and from the 
far North to the extreme South. 

With a mind free from prejudice and a heart full 
of sympathy for the poor and ignorant everywhere, 
it was only natural that somewhat early in his 
benevolent life his attention should be called to the 
mission field, and that because of the interest which 
Mrs. Pearsons had in foreign work, he himself should 
be led to consider its claims. It is doubtful, indeed, 
if he has ever felt more satisfaction in any other gift 
he has made than in the large sums he has sent to 
Anatolia College in Turkey. Once aroused, his 
interest in the Christian training of the youth in 
Mission Schools could not fail to increase, till it 
culminated in the last great gift in his power to 
make, a hundred thousand dollars for the support 

260 



RETROSPECT 

of the institutions of learning under the care of the 
American Board of Foreign Missions. He now feels 
that through these gifts he is doing something to 
banish ignorance and develop Christian character 
in the far East as well as in the United States of 
America. 

Following such a plan of benevolence as his, it 
would have been impossible to prevent an expansion 
of outlook year by year. Constant reading, exten- 
sive travel in many countries, association with 
broad-minded, well-informed, consecrated persons 
have given Dr. Pearsons a knowledge of the educa- 
tional needs of his own and of other lands wider 
and more exact than most of his friends suspect. 
His habit of asking questions of those who are able 
to answer them intelligently, a strong memory, great 
keenness in detecting fraud or self-interest on the 
part of a visitor, have brought him a fund of informa- 
tion from which he has always been able to draw, 
and of which he has never failed to make good use. 

Yet he says he would not care to go back twenty 
years and dispense another fortune as large as the 
one he has now dispensed. These years have been 
his busiest years, but they have been the happiest 
years of his life. Were he to live them over, he 
could not exercise more care in giving than he has 
done. He doubts if on the whole he could give to 
better advantage. He sees great fields of need, 
rare opportunities for the investment of money in 
the promotion of Christian education, but he feels 
that his special mission has been accomplished. 

mi 



LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS 

Others must take up his work, enlarge it, perfect 
it. As a pioneer he has led the way. If the fields are 
white unto the harvest and the laborers few, he 
believes the laborers will increase and that the 
time is not far distant when every poor boy and 
girl who has the wish will find it possible to obtain 
such an education as may be required for the great- 
est usefulness in life. 

At his advanced age Dr. Pearsons misses the 
friends of earlier years. Sometimes the days are 
lonely. For more than five years he has mourned 
the loss of the counsellor and friend who for nearly 
sixty years walked by his side. Her society was 
a perpetual solace. Her advice was always welcome, 
and to her husband's mind infallible. Others, too, 
whom he loved to meet and with whom he delighted 
to talk, have gone. Those to whom the knowledge 
of what he has done, would have brought comfort 
and happiness, are no longer here. A very lonely 
man is left? — far from it. The thought of more 
than fifty institutions with fully a thousand teachers 
in them and many thousands of students, constantly 
discharging their daily duties, brings with it abun- 
dant cheer. The life of these institutions is to con- 
tinue, he says to himself, after his has reached its 
limit, their influence for good is to have no end. 
Sleepless nights are full of precious memories. A 
vivid and well-trained imagination creates inspiring 
visions of the future. Now that his task has been 
accomplished he looks back over his life, thinks of 
it as if his life were the life of another, is amazed 

262 




Dr. D. K. Pearsons at Ninety 



RETROSPECT 

oftentimes at what he has been permitted to do, 
declares himself the happiest of men, and wishes 
that every rich man might know as he knows, the 
joy there is in giving. 

Dr. Pearsons has always taken the part of the 
common people. He has lived near them in thought 
and affection. In all his gifts he has sought their 
interest. He has sympathized with men of wealth 
also. His associations in business have been with 
them chiefly. He has admired their enterprise and 
looked upon their gains as legitimate. With Social- 
ists he has had no sympathy nor with reformers whose 
amunition for attack upon those more fortunate 
than themselves in the possession of this world's 
goods, has been drawn from jealousy and misap- 
prehension, and who have not hesitated to accuse 
them of almost every crime of which one can con- 
ceive, yet his constant aim has been to minister to 
the welfare of the people of the poorer classes. On 
the basis of justice and merit he has sought to render 
it possible for poor boys and girls to obtain an educa- 
tion equal to that open to the children of the rich, 
or the well-to-do. With people who work with 
their hands or live on small salaries he has been in 
hearty sympathy. He has lived and felt as if he 
were a laboring man himself. To the poor whites 
he once said, "I was a poor white myself, as poor as 
any one of you." But with wealth as such he has 
had no quarrel, only with its use. By his own exam- 
ple he has shown the world how he believes it may be 
honestly acquired and in what way its possessor 



LIFE OF DR. D. K PEARSONS 

may employ it for the good of mankind. In no 
case would he have so much given as to remove or 
lessen the necessities of toil and self-sacrifice on the 
part of those who receive, but in such a way as to 
render it possible for them to become fellow-workers 
with the man who has entrusted a portion of his 
wealth to their keeping. It is in the laboring classes 
that he has seen the promise of the continued pros- 
perity of the Republic. From them are to come 
the Lincolns and the Garfields of the future, as well 
as the patriotic citizens who are the hope of the 
country. And they are to be taught in such schools 
as Berea, Drury, Park, Piedmont, Rollins, Guilford 
and Middlebury, to say nothing of the other schools 
he has aided. In his daily meditation, he has put 
himself by the side of poor young men and women 
in these schools, made them his companions, felt 
the weight of their burdens on his own shoulders, 
sought to encourage them in their ambitions and 
to assure them of victory in their struggle with 
ignorance and poverty. 

As a Christian man Dr. Pearsons has not felt 
inclined to make any very large gifts to any but 
Christian institutions. He has not cared for denom- 
inationalism. With a broad, tolerant, genuinely 
Christian spirit he has been satisfied. A steady 
attendant at church services, either at a Congrega- 
tional or a Presbyterian Church, in full sympathy 
with their methods of benevolence, he has yet felt 
that his money could be used to better advantage 
if confined for the most part to the educational 

264 



RETROSPECT 

field than if expended under the direction of church 
boards. In work among the poorer classes in cities 
like Chicago he has had genuine interest. To the 
Chicago City Missionary Society he has given more 
than two hundred thousand dollars because he has 
believed in the churches established by it, in the 
Sunday schools and other organizations growing 
out of these churches as agencies for the develop- 
ment of moral character for the lessening of tempta- 
tion, the diminution of crime, the developing of good 
citizenship and stimulating youth to make the best 
possible use of their opportunities. 

In all that he has done he has felt as if God were 
with him and were guiding him. He has felt that 
his responsibility was to God, not to men, and while 
not indifferent to what men might think of him, 
has yet sought to do what he has believed God has 
wished him to do, what under his blessing would 
best promote the interests of his kingdom and fit 
men to live in that kingdom. He has believed that 
a man can be what he desires to be, that God has 
given him endowments and opportunities to use, 
and that if in early life, a person is brought under 
proper influences he will, in all probability, become 
a patriotic Christian man, a blessing to his genera- 
tion and to his country. But the moving impulse 
of this life must be Christian, or the chances of its 
usefulness in society are greatly lessened. Hence 
the emphasis which he has laid upon Christian 
training, upon principle, duty and the example of 
Jesus Christ. 

265 



LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS 

Although in his ninety-second year and with 
growing infirmities of the flesh, Dr. Pearsons is 
young in thought and full of confidence in the future. 
There" has never been anything like pessimism in 
his nature. In early life he determined to succeed. 
In his professional career he allowed no thoughts 
of failure to hinder his progress. 

As a business man, where others predicted failure 
or hard times, he saw prosperity and rarely or never 
failed to reach it. Experience has taught him that 
men can be trusted; for this reason he has been 
willing to put large sums of money into the hands of 
others to invest for work to be done after he shall 
have passed away. With a breadth of vision and 
a spirit of toleration that few men so old as he mani- 
fest, like one of the old prophets, though with more 
confidence than they sometimes exhibited in their 
countrymen, he sees the world continually becom- 
ing better, as class after class of well-trained youth 
pass out from under the influence of teachers in the 
Christian schools which he has done so much to 
establish and perpetuate. If he has loved money 
it has not been because he cared to exercise the 
power which its possession sometimes gives, nor 
because he has taken pleasure in the luxuries it 
could furnish him, or the woman who stood by his 
side in his strenuous years, and who encouraged 
him as he began the distribution of his wealth, but 
because he saw and felt that God had given him 
the privilege of wealth that he might employ it for 
the benefit of those to whom it had not come. In 



RETROSPECT 

long wakeful nights he thinks over the history of 
the institutions, whose financial distress he allevi- 
ated and in whose prosperity he has so large a share, 
and looking into the future he thinks of the contri- 
butions which the men and women educated in 
these institutions will make to the welfare of the 
generations in which they may live and of the grati- 
tude many of them will feel toward the man who, 
far back in the history of their college or seminary, 
preserved its life and gave it an impulse which has 
made it a power for good in the country and the 
world. A lonely man he cannot be, for his mind 
is filled with precious memories, and with a feeling 
of satisfaction over the use he has made of his fac- 
ulties, and of the fortune which the use of these facul- 
ties had given him. He is a happy man because he 
has thought not of himself alone or chiefly, but of 
the children of the unfortunate, the immigrant, the 
belated mountaineer, the day -laborer, and has made 
it possible for them to obtain an education; a happy 
man, too, because of his faith that in a few years 
more he will be again with the wife of his youth, and 
with her review his life on earth and enter into the 
service open to them both in heaven. 

Dr. Pearsons has lived in his own age. He has 
never been full of praise for old times or neglectful 
of present duties. He has done with his might 
whatever his hands have found to do. He has 
believed that the days in which he has been living 
were the best for him and for his generation and has 
had complete confidence in a future better than the 

267 



LIFE OF DR. D. K PEARSONS 

present. But lie has done his work in sympathy 
with his time and has entered into all the enter- 
prises of that time with enthusiam and hope. He 
has grown in mental power with his time, and having 
had a share in the developments in every direction 
of the century in which he has lived, has shown the 
effect of these developments in his own enlarged 
visions and in sympathies which encircle the world. 
With all that has been wrought through the discov- 
ery of steam, or electricity as applied to transporta- 
tion and the mechanical arts, he has been made 
familiar. Nor has he allowed himself to doubt that 
progress will be as marked in all that concerns the 
physical welfare of men as well in the twentieth 
century as in the century which has closed. With 
the improvements in surgery and in the treatment 
and prevention of disease he has kept in touch. 
Unlike some nonagenarians he has had no prejudice 
against the new education or rather the new methods 
employed in education. If he has believed in the 
old, he has not been unwilling to accept the new 
wherever the new has shown itself to be better 
than the old. Living in the spirit of his time he 
has kept himself young in spite of increasing years. 
With the press he has been in hearty sympathy. 
Not indifferent to its faults he has found it a con- 
stant helper. He has welcomed its representatives. 
He has talked with them freely. They have never 
disabused his confidence, have treated him with 
unfailing courtesy, and not infrequently have aided 
him in creating a sentiment in a given community 



RETROSPECT 

which has brought success in the effort to meet the 
conditions which his gifts imposed. They have met 
the criticisms which some who would avoid personal 
responsibility have expressed of the conditions upon 
which his gifts have depended. Personally indif- 
ferent to criticism, he has yet known that the 
complete success of that method of giving which 
he has deemed the wisest could not be secured 
without the help of the press. For the courtesy 
it has extended to him he has not failed to express 
his thanks. 

Who shall say that a life like this is not worth 
living? That in each one of its distinct and widely 
differing periods it has not been a useful life, bring- 
ing gains to its possessor, happiness and comfort to 
others? These last years spent in considering the 
needs of others, and in striving to meet them in such 
ways as will be effective now and in the future, how 
rich they have been through the joy of giving and 
the consciousness of rendering assistance to self- 
sacrificing men and women who consecrate them- 
selves to the work of training youth for high and 
useful positions in society. 

Enjoying a life prolonged by divine favor more 
than two decades beyond the ordinary threescore 
and ten, these last years have been rich years, for 
they have witnessed the execution of plans dimly 
formed in early manhood but requiring time and 
experience for their realization. "This one thing 
I do," forgetting the strenuous efforts put forth in 
the getting of money, he has made efforts not a 

269 



LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS 

whit less strenuous in putting it where it will pro- 
duce fruit in well-developed character in the youth 
of our own time and of years to come. With eye 
undimmed, interest in the present unabated, in the 
tenth decade of his earthly life, having invested his 
millions where he believes they will do the most good 
in making Christian patriots, Dr. Pearsons awaits 
calmly, and with full confidence in the promises of 
the Christian religion, the time of his departure. 
Yet he loves life and is in no hurry to leave it. 

Those who know him best pray sincerely that he 
may abide with them till he has celebrated his 
hundredth birthday, their teacher and example in 
the principles of a true and far-reaching system of 
benevolence, a friend whose advice is always help- 
ful, and whose companionship is as inspiring as it 
is delightful. 



270 



INDEX 



INDEX 



Academy, Paris, 226. 

Aetna Life Insurance Company, 

22, 45. 
Alfred the Great, 170. 
Allerton, S. W., 50. 
American Board, 224, 231-234, 

250. 
American Missionary Association, 

191. 
Amherst College, 9. 
Anatolia College, 58, 224-234, 260. 
Andrews, S. W., 117. 
Appleton, Wis., 16, 152. 
Armour, P. D., 31. 
Armstrong, J. C, 81, 250. 
Arnold, I. N., 27. 
Ashland, Wis., 153. 
Athens, University of, 226. 
Atkinson, G. H., 206, 211. 
Avery, T. M., 29. 



B. 



Bacon, Asa, 71. 

Barrows, J. H., 72. 

Barton, J. L., 225, 231-233, 240, 

251. 
Barton, W. E., 174-175, 212, 249. 
Battle Creek, Mich., 281. 
Beecher, Jerome, 29, 50. 
Beidler, Jacob, 29. 
Beloit College, 12, 62, 131-141, 

161, 240, 246-248, 283-285, 296- 

297. 
Beloit, Wis., 11, 241. 
Berea College, 167-180, 241, 264, 

290, 302. 



Berea, Ky., 58, 95, 167, 250. 

Berlin, University of, 225. 

Bishop, Pres., 120. 

Blackman, Pres., 193-195. 

Blair, C. M., 29, 49. 

Blaisdell, J. A., 141, 213-214, 218. 

Blatchford, E. W., 27, 29. 

Boardman, Prof., 76. 

Boon, Pres., 151. 

Boone, L. D., 29. 

Booth, Henry, 37-38. 

Boston, Mass., 7, 15, 205. 

Bo wen Bros., 28. 

Bradford Academy, 6. 

Bradford, Vt., 3, 6. 

Bradley, Gov., 179, 241. 

Braun and Company, 73. 

Briggs, J. B., 53. 

Brigham Hall., Mary, 126. 

Brookline, Mass., 7. 

Bross, William, 29, 32. 

Brown, Mrs. T. B., 205-206. 

Brutus, 16. 

Buckhannon, W. Va., 187. 

Burritt, Elihu, 9. 

Butterick, Wallace, 245. 



C. 



Cabot Institute, 9. 
California, University of, 218. 
Carleton College, 152, 225. 
Carnegie, Andrew, 94, 118, 149, 

195, 217-218, 239-240, 247. 
Carnegie Hall, 169. 
Carpenter, Philo, 29. 
Carter, William H., 37-38. 
Cedar Rapids, la., 146. 
Chamberlain, Prof., 134. 



18 



273 



INDEX 



Chapin, Deacon Giles, 9. 

Chapin, E. H., 9. 

Chapin Hall, Beloit, 135, 137. 

Chapin Hall, Evanston, 102. 

Chapin, Julia A., 57, 102, 223. 

Chapin, Marietta A., 9, see also 
Pearsons, Marietta Chapin. 

Chapin, Prof., 141. 

Chattanooga, Term., 187. 

Chattanooga, Tenn., University 
of, 187-189. 

Chicopee, Mass., 8-10. 15, 57. 

Chicago, 111., 3, 12, 15, 17, 20, 22- 
23; Art Institute, 73-74; busi- 
ness life in, 37-64; City Mis- 
sionary Society, 79-81, 83, 265; 
in 1860, 27-34; institutions, 
gifts to, 67-85, 111, 131, Times, 
30; Theological Seminary, 76- 
79; Tribune, 30; University of, 
50; Y. M. C. A., 68-71. 

Cincinnati, O., 167. 

Claremont, Cal., 212, 215, 218. 

Clark, Alonzo, 8. 

Clark, Harvey, 206. 

Clark, Senator, 94. 

Clarkson, It. H., 30. 

Cobb, S. B., 50. 

Collyer, Robert, 29. 

Colorado College, 148-150, 286. 

Colorado Springs, Colo., 148-149. 

Constantinople, 230. 

Converse, J. H., 94. 

Coe College, 146. 

Coolbaugh, W. F., 29. 

Cragin, Pres., 156. 

Culver, H. Z., 29. 

Curtiss, Prof., 76. 

Cushing, A. M., 3. 

Cutter, Calvin, 15, 152. 



D. 

Dartmouth College, 6, 206. 
Davis, N. S., 29. 
Davis, O. S., 77, 250 
Deer Lodge, Mont., 151. 
Deering, William, 31. 
Demorest, Ga., 191. 



Deneen, Gov., 107, 250. 

Doane College, 147. 

Doane, J. W., 29 

DoUiver, Senator, 5. 

Doney, C. G., 187. 

Douglass, Camp, 28. 

Dox, Virginia, 200-201. 

Drury College, 159-163, 243, 264, 

285. 
Dunne, Father, 30. 



E. 



Eaton Brothers, 93. 

Eaton, E. D., 132-239, 248. 

Eaton, Hon. John, 241. 

Eddy, T. M., 29. 

Education Society, 212. 

Eells, Cushing, 206. 

Elgin, 111., 11. 

Emerson Hall, Beloit, 136, 138- 

139 
Emerson, Prof., 136, 138-139, 141. 
Europe, 11. 

Evanston, 111., 3-4, 101-102. 
Evarts, W. M., 33. 
Everts, W. W., 29. 



F. 



Fairlee, Vt., 4. 

Fairmount College, 147-148. 

Faneuil Hall, 7. 

Fargo CoUege, 156-158. 

Fargo, N. D., 156. 

Farwell, C. B., 29. 

Farwell, J. V., 29, 68. 

Fee, John G., 167. 

Ferguson, Pres., 213. 

Ferrin, W. F., 207. 

Field, Marshall, 28, 31. 

Fifield, Dr., 173. 

Finney, Julia V., 151. 

Fisk, Prof., 76. 

Fisk University, 168. 

Forest Grove, Oreg., 205-207, 210, 

212. 
Fort Dodge, la., 5. 



274 



INDEX 



French, Pres., 154. 

French, W. M. R., 73. 

Frost, Pres., 106. 

Frost, W. G., 170, 172-176, 179- 

180, 250. 
Fuller, H. T., 159, 243. 
Fuller, M. W„ 29. 



G. 

Galesburg, 111., 207. 

Gates, G. A., 213, 218. 

George, J. H., 163. 

Gilbert, Simeon, 173, 250. 

Grand Prairie Seminary, 105-106. 

Grant University, 188. 

Gray, C. O., 190. 

Gray, W. B. D., 155. 

Greeley, Horace, 9. 

Greenville, East Tenn., 189. 

Griggs, S. C., 32. 

Guilford College, 190-191, 264. 

Guilford, N. C, 190. 



Holden, L. E., 140, 240. 
Holyoke, Mass., 4. 
Hopkins, Henry, 243. 
House, J. T., 192. 
Howard Hall, 174. 
Hoyne, Thomas, 55. 
Hubbard, G. S., 27, 29. 
Humphrey, Z. M., 29-30. 
Hurd, Henry, 37-38. 
Huron College, 153. 
Huron, S. D., 153-154. 
Hutchinson, 73-74. 



I. 



Idaho, College of, 151. 
Illinois Central R. R., 20, 42. 
Illinois College, 106. 
Illinois, University of, 241. 
Imperial Law School, Constanti- 
nople, 226. 
Ingram Hall, 152. 
Iowa College, 213 



H. 



J. 



Hale, W. E., 135, 139. 

Halsey, J. J., 104. 

Hamill, E. A., 49, 71-72. 

Harlan, Justice, 169. 

Harmon, J. F., 106-107. 

Harms, J. H., 183-187. 

Hartford, Conn., 22, 45. 

Harvard Law School, 4. 

Harvey, T. W., 29. 

Hassam, Childe, 73. 

Hastings College, 146. 

"Hawks, Pa," 10. 

Heath, Mayor, 53-55. 

Heinze, F. A., 94. 

Higgins, V. H., 29. 

Hinsdale, 111., 38, 56-58, 67, 95, 

245, 249, 252. 
Hinsdale Sanitarium, 249. 
Hitchcock, A. N., 250. 
Hitchcock, Pres., 9. 
Hobbs, L. L., 190-191. 
Hoge, Mrs. M. D., 33. 



James, Pres., 241. 
Janesville, Wis., 11, 17, 131. 
Jones, D. A., 49. 
Judd, N. B., 29. 



K. 

Kansas City, Mo., 146, 243. 
Kennedy, J. S., 175. 
Kent, Aratus, 43, 67. 
Kilbourn, E. B., 248. 
King, Tuthill, 32. 
Kingfisher College, 192-193. 
Kingfisher, Okla., 192. 
Knox College, 108-112, 207. 



L. 



Lake Forest University, 102-105. 
Lancaster, Pres., 116. 



275 



INDEX 



Lawrence University, 16, 152. 

Lebanon, 111., 106. 

Leiter, L. Z., 28. 

Leland Stanford University, 218. 

Lexington, Ky., 169. 

Lincoln, 32-33, 169-170. 

Lincoln Institute, 169. 

Livermore, Mrs. Mary, 33. 

Los Angeles, Cal., 215. 

Louisville and Nashville R. R. 

167. 
Louisville, Ky., 169. 
Low, Seth, 169. 
Lowell, Pres., 247. 
Lyon, Mary, 9-10, 39, 125. 



M. 

Maile, J. L., 200, 202. 

Manual Labor School, 7. 

Marietta College, 117-118. 

Mar&h, James, 206. 

Marsh Memorial Hall, 206-207. 

Marsh, Professor, 206, 211. 

Marsh, S. H., 206. 

Marsovan, Turkey, 224, 226, 231. 

McAfee, L. M., 145. 

McCagg, Ezra, 27. 

McClelland, Pres., 111-112, 207- 

211. 
McClure, J. G. K, 75, 103, 105. 
McCormick, C. H., 29, 31. 
McCormick, Mrs., 94. 
McCormick Theological Seminary, 

75. 
McCrea, S. H., 53. 
McKendree College, 106-108. 
Medill, Joseph, 30. 
Merrill, Pres., 153, 242. 
Messer, L. W., 68, 70. 
Michigan, Lake, 15. 
Michigan, University of, 116. 
Middlebury College, 122-124, 264. 
Mills, W. W., 117. 
Mitchell, Arthur, 52. 
Montana ; College of, 151. 
Montpelier Conference Seminary, 

6, 119-122, 258. 
Moody, C. B., 192. 



Morrill Act, vii, 90. 
Mt. Holyoke College, 10, 124-127, 
291-293, 301, 305. 



N. 



Nashville, Tenn., 16, 168. 
Newberry College, 183-186, 240. 
Newberry, S. C, 183. 
Newberry, W. L., 27. 
Newbury Seminary, 6, 120. 
New College, Edinburgh, 225. 
Newell, H. C, 191. 
New Haven, Conn., 3. 
New York City, 3, 8. 
Nixon, O. W., 191, 199-200. 
Noble, F. A., 250. 
Northfield, Minn., 152. 
Northland College, 153. 
Northwestern University, 101. 



O. 

Oak Park, 111., 175. 
Ogden, M. D., 27. 
Ogden, W. B., 27. 
Olivet College, 115, 283. 
Onarga, 111., 105. 
Osborne, Tenn., 179. 



P. 



Pacific University, 205-212, 286. 
Page, Peter, 28. 
Palmer, Potter, 28. 
Park College, 145, 264. 
Parker, Theodore, 9. 
Parkville, Mo., 145. 
Pasadena, Cal., 172, 215. 
Patterson, R. W., 29, 108. 
Patton, C. H., 224. 
Patton, W. W., 29. 
Paulson, Dr., 249-250. 
Pearley, George E., 158. 
Pearsons, Arthur, 3. 
Pearsons, Charles, 3. 
Pearsons, Elizabeth, 3. 



276 



INDEX 






Pearsons, Daniel Kimball, birth 
and ancestry, 3-6; early life and 
education, 6-8; 95; marriage, 9; 
practise in Chicopee, 8-10; 
decision to go West, 10; gifts to 
Beloit, 11-12; preparation for 
life in Chicago, 15-21; lectures, 
15-18; land agent, 19-23; life in 
Chicago, 37-64 ; personal appear- 
ance, 40; alderman, 53-56; 
advice to young men, 62-63; 
principles of giving, 83-85; 
gifts to denominational col- 
leges, 89-97; to 111. institutions, 
101-112; 115-127; to Beloit, 
131-141; to other Western Col- 
leges, 145-163; to Berea, 167- 
180; to other Southern Colleges, 
183-195; to Pacific Coast, 199- 
220; to Missions, 223-234; ap- 
preciations of, 239-252; retro- 
spect, 255-270; addresses etc.; 
Appendix, 281-304; Greeting of 
Congregational Club, 305-308. 

Pearsons, George, 4-5. 

Pearsons, H. A., 45. 

Pearsons, Hall, Mrs. John A., 4. 

Pearsons, Hannah P., 5-6. 

Pearsons, John, 5-6. 

Pearsons, J. A., 3-4. 

Pearsons, Marietta C, 10, 23-24, 
42, 56, 57, 74, 80, 95, 160, 193, 
243, 251, 300, 305, 308. (See 
also Chapin, M. A., and Pear- 
sons, D. K.) 

Pearsons-Taft Land Credit Co., 45. 

Pearsons, W. B. C, 4. 

Peck, J. W., 32. 

Penrose, S. B. L., 200-205. 

Penrose, Mrs. S. B. L., 203. 

Perry, Pres., 147. 

Piedmont College, 191, 264. 

Plantz, Pres., 152. 

Pomona College, 212-220. 

Porter, Prof., 141. 

Portland, Ore., 210. 

Presbyterian Church, Chicago, 
First, 32, 42, 43, 52, 67-68, 72. 

Presbyterian Hospital, 49, 71, 256. 

Putnam, Israel, 6, 



R. 



Race, J. H., 187-189. 

Railroad Mission, 42, 67. 

Rammelskamp, Pres., 106. 

Rankin, W. A., 105. 

Rawlins, Mr., 176. 

Raymond, B. W., 29. 

Ripon College, 152, 242. 

Ripon, Wis., 152, 153. 

Rochelle, 111., 19-20. 

Rockefeller, J. D., 250. 

Rogers, J. A., 178-179. 

Rollins College, 193-195, 249, 264. 

Roosevelt, ex-Pres., 179, 242. 

Rosenberg, Jacob, 50, 53. 

Ross, J. P., 49, 71. 

Royal Conservatory of Music, 

Stuttgart, 226. 
Ryder, W. H., 29. 



S. 



St. Louis, Mo., 107. 

Samsoun, Turkey, 230. 

Saulsbury, Prof., 134. 

Savage, G. S. F., 76. 

Scammon, J. W., 32. 

Scherer, J. A. B., 184, 240. 

Schuttler, Peter, 29. 

Scott, Harvey, 208. 

Scott, Prof., 76. 

Seward, W. H., 33. 

Sheldon, E. H., 27. 

Sherman, Speaker, 244. 

Sherwood, Mr., 52, 67. 

Skinner, Judge M., 27. 

Slocum, Pres., 149. 

Smith, Dr. J. B. C, 9. 

Smith, George, 29. 

Smith, Solomon, 29, 49. 

South Hadley, Mass., 9. 

South Side City Railway System, 

44-45, 50. 
Sperry, Pres., 115-117. 
Springfield, 111., 243. 
Springfield, Mass., 3, 19. 
Springfield, Mo., 162, 243. 
Stephenson, Isaac, 152. 



277 



INDEX 



Stickney, E. H., 157-158. 
Stone, Mrs. Valeria, 89. 
Storrs, E. A., 29. 
Story, W. F„ 30. 
Stowell, Mr. and Mrs., 136. 
Strong, J. W., 152. 
Sturgis, Solomon, 20. 
Sullivan, Michael, 20. 
Sumner, C. B., 213-220. 
Swift, G. A., 31, 52, 67. 



Tabor College, 146. 
Taft, O. B., 45. 
Taft, Pres., 169. 
Thayer, H. E., 148. 
Thomas, J. M., 122-124. 
Thurston, 10. 
Tiffany, I. EL, 29. 
Topeka, Kans., 147. 
Tracy, Pres., 224. 
Troy, N. Y., 9, 124. 
Tualtin Academy, 206. 



V. 



Vermont Central R. R., 5. 
Vermont, Society of the Sons of, 

51, 63. 
Vermont, University of, 206. 



Washburn College, 147. 

Washburn, E. B., 27. 

Washington and Tusculum Col- 
lege, 189-190. 

Washington, D. C, 199, 242. 

Weslevan College, W. Va., 187. 

Wheeler, E. P., 153. 

Wheelock, Eleazar, 206. 

White, G. E., 224. 

Whitman College, 199-205, 287- 
289. 

Whitman, Marcus, 199, 203. 

Whitman, Memorial Building, 203. 

Whitman, Mrs. Marcus, 203. 

Wichita, Kans., 147-148. 

Willard's Seminary, Miss., 9, 124. 

Williams College, 243. 

Williams, E. F., 251. 

Williston, A. L., 125. 

Wilson, Gov. Woodrow, 169-170. 

Wilson, Gov., 169. 

Winter Park, Fla., 193, 195. 

Woman's Board of Foreign Mis- 
sions, 58, 223. 

Woman's Educational Aid Asso- 
ciation, 101-102. 

Woman's Foreign Missionary 
Board, Presbyterian, 76, 223. 

Woodstock, 111., 178. 

Woodstock, Vt., 8. 

Woolley, Pres., 126. 

Wooster University, 240. 

Worcester, Mass., 7. 



W. 



Walla Walla, Wash., 199, 205. 
Ward, Rev. Joseph, 154. 
Ward, Mrs. Joseph, 155. 
Warren, Pres., 155-156. 



Yale University, 225. 

Yankton College, 154-156. 

Yankton, S. D., 154. 

Y. M. C. A., Chicago, 68-71, 256. 



278 



APPENDICES 






APPENDIX 1 

A LESSON IN PRACTICAL PHILANTHROPY 

An Adress Delivered by Dr. D. K. Pearsons before 
the Civic -Philanthropic Conference at Battle 
Creek, Mich., October 18-23, 1898. 



I shall talk to you tonight in plain language. I am about to 
say some things that I have never before mentioned in the pres- 
ence of an audience. In other words, I propose to be very frank, 
very plain. My subject is : — 

"What to Do with Money — How to Use It" 

In order to illustrate my subject so that you may clearly 
understand it, I shall introduce several object lessons. I am 
going to take you on a long journey to see the places where we 
make use of money. I shall also bring in a little history incident 
to the places we are to visit. I shall be under the necessity of 
frequently using the pronoun "I." An old man has the right to 
make himself the hero of every story he tells. In the young 
man this would not be admissible, but an old man, approaching 
fourscore years, has a right to tell what he has done. I like to 
hear old men tell what they have done, and I am going to tell 
you what I have done, for a particular object; not because I am 
proud of it or vain about it, neither do I pose as a benevolent 
man — remember that. I am a thrifty and frugal old man. I 
have labored nearly eighty years to make money, and I have 
made it, and honestly, too. 

The statement may seem very strange to you, that I do not 

281 



LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS 

pose as a benevolent man. I have no benevolence in me, not 
a particle. I am the most economical, close-fisted man you ever 
put your eyes on. You can see it in my face — it is there. I do 
not think I ever foolishly spent twenty dollars in my life. I never 
went to a theater but once in my life, and then I was ashamed of 
myself. I never went to a horse-race, or a football game, or a 
baseball game, over which our students all over the country are 
making such consummate fools of themselves, and by allowing 
which the presidents and faculties are making idiots of them- 
selves. 

I am doing all that I am doing on business principles. After 
working hard and practising rigid economy for seventy years 
to lay up money, I said to myself: "What am I going to do with 
this? I can not carry it out of the world in my dead hands. 
Coffins were not made to carry money in. I have got to leave it ; 
that's the way to look at it. Now, what shall I do with it?" 

I looked around Chicago, and helped to build a hospital; 
helped two theological seminaries with three or four hundred 
thousand dollars; helped the Young Men's Christian Association 
and the City Missionary Society, and other institutions. But 
that did not satisfy me. I wanted to help the poor boys and 
girls of our country. I wanted to lay up something for them to 
live on while getting an education. I had been deprived of a 
college education through poverty, and I wanted to fix it so that 
these boys and girls, the sons and daughters of wage-earners, 
could have the privilege of a college close to them, so that they 
could get a liberal education. 

For this purpose I turned my attention to sixteen different 
colleges. I did not start a single one, and I never will; we have 
enough of them. All we need to do is to build up what we have. 
There are but two places in America where they have need of a 
college today, — one is Montana and the other is Oklahoma, and 
sometime they will have them, too. We want to make the colleges 
we have better; give them an endowment, so that they can 
enlarge their curriculum, pay their teachers, and meet the exi- 
gencies of the time. 

282 



APPENDIX 1 

So I looked around, and traveled some, too. Mind you, this 
was business, no benevolence in it at all. What shall I do with 
that money? — Find places for it where it will elevate, where it 
will be used for God and humanity. 

Olivet College 

Now I will take you on the journeys that I made. Let us 
begin right here in Michigan. I received a letter from President 
Sperry of Olivet College, twelve pages long. Sperry is a good 
fellow — what did he say? That letter was a declaration in equity; 
it was a regular "leader." It ran about as follows: — 

"You came into Michigan a few years ago, and bought 16,000 
acres of timber land, and you paid for it. You took that mag- 
nificent pine timber out of Michigan, and converted it into money, 
and you left nothing behind but the bare, white, sand dunes, 
that will produce only such things as choke-cherries. Timber 
will never grow there again. Now in equity return some of that 
money to Michigan." 

I replied: "You raise $75,000 in Michigan, — you can not go 
all over the world to raise it, but raise it here in Michigan, — and 
I will give you $25,000," and he said, "It is a bargain." 

He was in my office the other day, and said he had it all except 
$20,000. Thus Olivet College is about to stand up $100,000 
better off; and with this endowment the efficiency of the college 
will be greatly increased. Nothing will give me more pleasure 
than to make out that check for $25,000 for President Sperry. 

Beloit College 

But before we start out on our long journey, let me, by way of 
reminiscence, mention one incident from personal experience. 
In 1851 my wife and I took our first trip to the West. Our des- 
tination was Janes ville, Wis. We passed through Michigan on 
a strap rail, and traveled to Elgin, 111., which was the terminus 
of the railroad, and there we took a muck wagon to our desti- 
nation, passing through Beloit. We traveled through cold and 

283 



LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS 

mud, — rich mud, too, — but on reaching Beloit found there was 
a river. Our horses had to swim the river, and we had to stand 
on the seats to get over. We stopped at a little wooden tavern 
to rest. Beloit was but a small hamlet then. When we started 
on for Janesville, one of those big, burly fellows who always 
get into a new country, climbed into the wagon for a ride. 

As we drove along, we saw a brick building going up, and I 
asked the man, "What are they doing here?" "Why, there are 
some Yankee cranks building a college," he answered. That 
rather hit me. When they call me a Yankee, I take off my hat 
and bow; and when they call me an old Puritan, I make three 
bows. On the way to Janesville that man cursed everything that 
was good, and I stood up for Christian education the best I knew 
how. When we got to Janesville, I shook my fist in his face, 
and said, "Old fellow, I am going West, and in a few years I am 
going to get rich, and when I do, I am going to help lift up these 
colleges that these * Yankee cranks' are building up." I had 
my eye on Beloit at that time. 

Time went on, and my seventy years rolled by, and nine years 
ago I began. The first proposition I made to Beloit College 
was this: "I will give you $100,000 if you will raise $100,000." 
(I make everybody work a little, and that is the right way to 
do it.) In six weeks they raised that $100,000, and I had to 
draw my check. I was so well pleased, and the institution was 
such a grand character-building institution, that I went to work 
and built them a science hall, the finest in the West. It cost 
me $60,000 in cash. But I wasn't quite satisfied with that 
so the next year, seeing that the boys had to pay from $3.50 
to $4 for their board, I built them a dormitory costing $25,000. 
Now the boys can live on $1.50 a week. I wasn't quite satisfied 
with that, for they were good fellows. So I said, "Look here; 
you haven't got quite money enough; you want more endowment 
you want better professors. Now you raise $150,000 and I 
will give you another $50,000." So last commencement Presi- 
dent Eaton stepped in and said, "Here is $150,000 cash, — not 
Kansas mortgages, no sand dunes, no swamp lands, but 

284 



APPENDIX 1 

cash." So I gave him my check for $50,000, and that closed 
that deal. 

They established coeducation, and that pleased me. They 
were going to have the girls come in, but they had no cage to 
put them in. I said, "Get to work and build the finest building 
you can for seventy-five girls, and be sure you get a good many 
Mary Lyons and Frances Willards among them." So I gave 
them $30,000 for a beautiful dormitory, and it is now occupied 
by sixty-five young ladies. That was a very pleasant thing to 
do, and I am rather proud of it. You needn't tell me I am a good 
fellow — I know I am. 

Nine years ago there were about sixty students in Beloit College 
and about one hundred in the academy; now they have more than 
eighty in the freshman class, and more than two hundred each 
in the college and the academy. That is the difference between 
the situation then and now. 

Drury College 

Now, let us go down into Missouri. There is a college down 
there called Drury College, situated in Springfield, in the Ozark 
Mountains. Missouri was a slave state a few years ago, and they 
were not awake to the subject of education. They have waked up 
now. Drury College was started by a missionary named Drury 
from Olivet. They struggled along for a few years, in debt, 
begging, their teachers not paid, and all that. I said to them 
"You raise $150,000 for endowment (I make all do something) 
and I will add $50,000 to that sum." They went to work, and 
raised it quite readily. Now, the college is full to overflowing. 
So I told them the other day: "You go to work now and put up 
a college building. Build a good one, with some rooms for the 
sciences separate from the others. Build it to cost $50,000. 
You put in $25,000, and I will cover it with another $25,000." 
The president is working on the proposition now. 



285 



LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS 



Colorado Springs College 

Now let us travel one thousand miles to Colorado Springs. 
About thirty years ago I camped one summer with the Ute In- 
dians, where there was nothing but a little hamlet. A missionary 
started an academy and college there, and he worked and dug 
and toiled, but they didn't get along well. By and by there 
came along the right fellow, a bright, smart young fellow by the 
name of Slocum, and I had a confidence in that young man. I 
believed that he could make that college worth something. I 
said to him, "Slocum, you raise $150,000, and I will pay you 
$50,000 down." He thought a while, and finally said he couldn't 
do it. There were rich men all around there — twelve million- 
aires on one street in Colorado Springs! What are they saving 
their money for? — Saving it to ruin their boys and girls, and carry 
them to destruction. I said to them, "Work three years if neces- 
sary, to raise $150,000." 

They sent me a bound book, and in that book there were 1,000 
names, — the names of all the individuals who had contributed 
toward that $150,000. I have it now. I always require such 
a list. And then I required from the three best business men of 
Colorado Springs evidence that they had raised the $150,000, 
and had the money in hand. No getting around it. Everybody 
must come right up to the business mark. Now what have 
they? — They have a crowd of students. They come three hun- 
dred miles with their packs on their backs from the mountains 
and the plains, and they crowd in there, eager for an education — 
and they get it. 

Pacific University 

Now, let us go about six hundred miles farther. Let us go 
to the Pacific coast, about twenty miles from Portland, to a 
place called Forest Grove, where George Atkinson, an old school- 
mate of mine in Vermont, went fifty years ago. He traveled 
around by Cape Horn, and was six months in getting there. As 



APPENDIX 1 

soon as he was properly settled, he started an academy, and in 
a few years a college, and that has had the same trouble all the 
way through, — in debt, teachers not paid, people sick of being 
begged for the college. I wrote to President McLelland and said, 
"In memory of George Atkinson, my old schoolmate, and in 
memory of Mr. Marsh, who was president for many years, and 
died there, I will give you $50,000 if you will raise $100,000." 
They undertook to erect a college building, and they got it about 
so far and then stopped. I said, "How much money will it take 
to complete that building?" They replied, "$15,000." I 
sent them a check for $15,000, and they put that building in fine 
shape. They held a jubilee in July, and I have a detailed ac- 
count of what took place there. They are about the happiest 
people on the face of the earth. 

Now is that not a good way to use money? If you can find 
any better, I should like to have you tell me about it. But we 
must hasten on. 

Whitman College 

Let us go three hundred miles east, and we come to Walla 
Walla. What is the history of that college? — Marcus Whitman, 
one of the greatest missionaries and one of the noblest men that 
ever walked the earth, went there in 1842 with his wife. Theirs 
was the first wagon that ever crossed the mountains. They 
settled there among the Indians. He had an Indian school, 
and it was prosperous and flourishing. It was no man's land 
at that time. No one knew whether the British or the Americans 
owned it. There was a magnificent empire up there, compris- 
ing Washington, Oregon, and Idaho, and that shrewd and patri- 
otic Marcus Whitman saw that it was a country of great value, 
with its mighty forests, its fertile plains, its lofty mountains, its 
mineral treasures. 

In the dead of winter he, with his pack-mule and guide, traveled 
four thousand miles to Washington, D. C. When he got there, 
his hands and face were frosted, but his head was all right. He 
went before President Tyler, and found that Webster was about 

287 



LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS 

trading the whole country off for some fisheries off the coast of 
Nova Scotia. 

Whitman said: "I am not here for office; I am here to tell you 
that that is a magnificent country, and it belongs to the United 
States, and we must hold it." 

"Oh," replied Webster, "it can never be settled; there is not 
even a wagon trail." 

"I have taken a wagon over the mountains, and I took my wife 
along with me, so I know what I am talking about. I came here 
for the purpose of saving that country," said Whitman. 

The next spring he took more than one thousand people from 
St. Louis, Mo., and Illinois, and one thousand cattle with him 
over the mountains, to settle in that beautiful country. 

The enemies of civilization were jealous of that smart man, 
and they incited the Indians to kill him. They did kill him, 
but he left another good missionary behind — a man by the 
name of Eels. The best monument to be erected to Marcus 
Whitman was to build a college in his name, and such a college 
was built, costing $16,000, a very ordinary building. 

After struggling along for a few years, they were completely 
stranded — mortgaged for $15,000. I had written them that I 
would give them $50,000 if they would raise $150,000. They 
did not make a move. A man came into my office one day, and 
said his name was Penrose, the president of Whitman College. 
He said they were $13,500 in debt, and that there was a mortgage 
on the building, and that he didn't see how it was possible for 
them to raise $150,000. "And," said he, "we can't live without 
it." I then sat down and wrote a check for $13,500. "Now," 
said I, "send that out and pay the teachers and clean it all up." 

That was four years ago last June. They had then about 
forty pupils. Now what are they doing? — They have ten capa- 
ble young men who are professors. They have one young man, 
a professor of elocution and oratory, who eight years ago was a 
sheep-herder on the plains of Utah. His father and mother were 
Mormons. He came to Illinois and educated himself, and took 
the first prize in the interstate oratorical contest, a $100 prize. 

288 



APPENDIX 1 

You will also be glad to know that they have the $200,000 
endowment, and are getting seven per cent, for it there. They 
have gathered in about two hundred and fifty young men and 
women, some from Idaho and some from Montana. Yet they 
are poor, they must be educated, and they must have a home 
where they can live very cheaply. I believe students can live, 
with a good dormitory, on a dollar and a half a week, or about 
that amount. Yet they need more buildings. The good people 
of Washington built a monument of granite to Marcus Whitman 
on the ground where they buried him. Now I propose to build a 
monument. I shall put up a building 180 feet long and 60 feet 
wide, and two stories high, with all the appliances and appur- 
tenances of a first-class college, as a monument to Marcus Whit- 
man. Now, do not suppose I am going to build that building 
without those rich fellows out there doing something. They 
have got to contribute. The condition is that they must build 
the dormitory for these poor boys who come in from the moun- 
tains and plains, where they can live cheaply, and they must 
do this before I begin the monument. And they will do it, for 
they have noble men and women in that fair State, and it is going 
to add five per cent, of value to every acre of property to have 
that monument right there in the center of Walla Walla. Now, 
do you suppose I am going to let those rich old fellows hug their 
money, and let the poor boys and girls starve while acquiring 
an education? — No; they must do their part and become the 
constituency of the college. 

I should like to say a great deal more about Whitman College. 
I like it. I like it because it is educating a class of boys and girls 
who could not be educated without it. They could not get the 
money to go off to college, so they need it right there. These boys 
and girls are going to be the bone and sinew of America by and by. 

If you would know more of this old Christian hero, Marcus 
Whitman, and the grand work he did for the cause of Christian- 
ity and patriotism, read Dr. Nixon's book, "How Marcus Whit- 
man Saved Oregon." It will incite and encourage young Ameri- 
cans along the best lines of thought. 

19 289 



LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS 



Beeea College 

Now let us go down to Berea, Ky., among the foothills of the 
Cumberland Mountains. In this region of the South there are 
five or six million mountain whites, of Scotch-Irish blood, — grand, 
good blood, — noble men and women, although ignorant, with large 
families of children growing up in ignorance and idleness. Berea 
College was started many years ago. I went down there to the 
commencement four years ago, and was never so much interested 
in all my life; I will guarantee that there were three thousand 
horses hitched on the campus, and five thousand people there 
from the mountains. They are mountain whites — I am a moun- 
tain white, and I was once as poor as they are, and as ignorant. 
I am from the mountains away up in Vermont, where they have 
to shovel snow about five months in the year. 

When I announced that I would give them $50,000 if they would 
raise $150,000, I never saw anything like it. Those old moun- 
taineers wept, they were so happy. 

There is something to these hardy old mountaineers. Do you 
know that they turned the tide of battle in the Civil War? 
They stood like a wall of adamant, in the midst of the conflict 
between the North and the South, and all their sympathy and 
bravery were on the side of the North. Do you know that the 
men who planted the flag on Lookout Mountain were these 
very mountaineers? They were. They are brave people. 

Schools in the South 

I took a trip last winter to Asheville, N. C, and looked over the 
educational situation in the South. I want to tell you something, 
and I would tell Mason if he were here. The colored people 
of the South today are better cared for in the matter of edu- 
cation than are the mountain whites. They have excellent 
schools, and they are making great progress. And now I will 
tell you one thing more, and that is that during the next twenty 
years you will hear appeals for the mountain whites of Kentucky 

290 



APPENDIX 1 

and Virginia ringing out from the pulpit and the press. They 
deserve an education. They deserve much from us for whom 
they have done so much. This is a subject that is going to be 
agitated for the next twenty years, and I am going to do all I 
can for those brave mountaineers. 

But let us not lose sight of that endowment for Berea College. 
I got a letter from President Frost the other day, and he said 
"I now have within $20,000 of the $150,000." He is going to get 
that, and I am going to give him a check for $50,000 about the 
1st of January. He is going to get it, because those old anti- 
slavery men are not all dead, and they have money to put in 
that very institution that is equally for the mountain whites 
and the blacks together. 

Mount Holyoke College 

Let us now journey to the northeast a thousand miles. I am 
only going to speak of one more of the sixteen colleges in which 
I am personally interested. These are samples, and the rest are 
like them. 

We are now to stop at a beautiful place, Mount Holyoke, 
Mass. Here was founded the first female college ever erected 
in this country, one that has done more good and had a wider 
influence in the world than any other like institution under the 
sun. Holyoke has circled the globe with women's colleges. 

About a hundred years ago, Mary Lyon was born in an obscure 
town in Western Massachusetts, of poor parents. Most men and 
women of worth and influence come from poor parents, — from 
wage-earners, from poverty. Poverty is a blessing in disguise. 
Standing here today, I am thankful that I was born in poverty, 
and that I had to hustle, while the chilly winds of adversity blew 
around me. 

Hustle — that is what makes men. It is not pampering them. 
Take two dogs that are brothers, and put one in a rich man's 
family, where he has a soft cushion to lie on, and is fed highly 
seasoned food. That dog grows up a great big lumber-headed 
dog with a cirrhotic liver. The other dog is given to a poor 

291 



LIFE OF DR. D. K PEARSONS 

boy over in Podunk. There are a lot of boys in that family, 
and every boy gives the dog a kick. That dog grows up a splen- 
did dog, with good muscle and a good eye, and is able to take 
care of himself. Now bring him alongside of his brother raised 
in luxury, and he will lick him. That dog raised in Podunk 
can lick a dozen dogs like his brother. The pampered dog is good 
for nothing, while the dog that had to fight for an existence is 
a splendid specimen. 

Just so it is with boys. Put two boys in equally different 
environments, and one will turn out smart, for he has had to 
hustle; while the other, if he is fed well and coddled, may be a 
good-natured fellow, but that is about all. 

You might ask the question, "Are there not too many colleges, 
too many men going to college?" — No, there are not too many 
colleges, nor too many men going to college, nor too many women 
either. 

Mary Lyon's parents died, and she was left alone. She then 
did housework for her brother, who lived on a farm. She spun 
and wove and made coverlets and sold them, and got enough 
to go to Ashfield Academy. That girl had visions, but she 
was not visionary — not a bit of it. She saw through the mist 
and clouds that overhung the grandest country in the world, 
and the noblest people in the world. The mist was that a female 
should not be educated. I knew Mary Lyon; I saw her at work 
laying the first foundation of her magnificent institution. I 
once asked an old man why he did not help Mary Lyon. ' ' Why," 
said the old man, "it is of no use sending girls to college, it will 
spoil them for servants; they won't be worth a cent for servants 
if they go to school." 

That darkness, that mist, hung over New England like a pall, 
and Mary Lyon was the heroine who could look through it and 
see the stars beyond. This century has not produced another 
woman like Mary Lyon. There have been many great women, 
but Mary Lyon stood far above them all. What did she want? — 
She wanted an institution where the daughters of poor men could 
get an education on a very small amount of money. She went to 



APPENDIX 1 

work. She begged the lumber and the brick. She went among 
the farmers. I was practising medicine within five miles of her, 
and I used to meet her in her travels around, and sometimes 
she was disheartened, and although I was poor as Job's turkey 
then, I said to myself: "If I ever get anything ahead in the world, 
the first thing I take up will be such work as Mary Lyon is doing." 

Mary Lyon is dead, but the college she founded still lives. 
They were without any endowment four years ago, and I wrote 
them, "I will give you $50,000 if you will raise $150,000," and 
they went to work and got half of it. Two years ago last 
September that building that Mary Lyon built to accommodate 
four hundred girls took fire and burned up, turning the girls 
into the street. Out of those four hundred girls only five went 
home. The farmers and the people there said, "We will take 
care of you," and they did take care of them, and they kept the 
school intact. 

That building was consumed, and while its embers were still 
red-hot, I telegraphed to Williston, the Treasurer: "Fifty thou- 
sand dollars to build up Mount Holyoke." What a turn that was ! 
They had sunk into despair and despondency ,when all at once 
light flashed upon them. That was the old institution founded 
by Mary Lyon, and it has risen again. Now, Holyoke has five 
of the finest dormitories in the country, and the most magnifi- 
cent administration building as a memorial of Mary Lyon. I 
got a letter today from the treasurer, saying, "We are now 
going to have, in addition to the building, a new gymnasium." 
At the last commencement I sent my check, and they have now 
$200,000. They are going to be the best and the grandest 
institution in this country. 

I have tried to illustrate my subject, "What to Do with 
Money." I have given you a few pages of personal history to 
show you what one man of long experience believes is the right 
way to use money. I have faith in this method of doing good. 
I shall continue to prove my faith by my works. I hope many 
will do likewise. 



293 



APPENDIX 2 

ADDRESS TO THE PUBLIC BY DR. D. K. PEARSONS, 
ON HIS NINETY-FIRST BIRTHDAY 

From The Tribune of April 15, 1911 

It has seemed to some of my friends that I ought not to retire 
from activity without publishing some statement of the work I 
have attempted and my purpose henceforth. 

One year ago, on my ninetieth birthday, I made or renewed 
conditional pledges aggregating approximately $300,000, limited 
in time to one year. At that time I made a statement that these 
were my last pledges, and that when they were fully paid I should 
retire from the field of public service and seek that quiet which has 
been denied me in recent years. 

The conditions of my gifts have practically all been met. I 
he down to sleep tonight, free from debt. I owe no man any- 
thing, and no college, institution, or individual has any outstand- 
ing claim against me. This is a great relief, and it is to be per- 
manent. Henceforth I make no pledges and no gifts. I have 
given practically $5,000,000 to various charities. These gifts 
resulted in the raising of at least $10,000,000 more. This is the 
end. 

Has No More Money to Give Away 

I wish to make this very emphatic. I want all my friends to 
help me to make it perfectly plain. I will receive no more solici- 
tors and will read no more letters soliciting gifts. What money I 
now have is fully provided for. I have no more money to give 
away. 

294 



APPENDIX 2 

I must ask relief and insist upon it. This is the announcement 
I wish to make upon my ninety-first birthday. 

The promises which I made a year ago I have kept. I 
have no more money to be given away. Please stop writing 
me letters which I cannot read nor answer. They burden 
me, and must disappoint the writers. 

But I cannot terminate so active and interesting a career without 
a further word concerning the experiences of these ninety-one 
years, and especially the last twenty- two, which have been devo- 
ted exclusively to what my friends have been pleased to call 
1 ' philanthropies . ' ' 

I used to deny that I was a philanthropist. I was accustomed 
to say that I had no benevolence in me. But if philanthropy 
means loving one's fellow-men, then perhaps I am entitled to the 
term. But I still maintain that if I had chosen my course with a 
simple view to selfish pleasure, I could not have chosen better 
than I did, for these twenty-two years have been years of constant 
joy. I had a good time making my money, but have had a better 
time spending it. 

Never Cared to Waste Money 

I have never denied myself anything that I have needed or 
greatly cared for. If I have been criticised, it has been because 
I did not spend money for things I did not want. I have had all 
the food I needed and all the clothes that I could wear. I have 
had a good home, good books, and every reasonable comfort. 

I never cared for theaters. I never went to but one, and then I 
was ashamed of myself. I never went to a horse race or a foot- 
ball game. I have not cared to waste my money on things that 
would only increase my responsibility and cause me discomfort. 
I have not cared to hoard money for people to quarrel over after 
I was dead. 

If I had chosen selfishly I could have chosen nothing more 
pleasant than that which I have chosen. This is what I have 
meant when I have said I am not a philanthropist. This was my 
meaning when I called myself a close-fisted old man. 

295 



LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS 

And yet I want to make a confession. This course which I 
chose for myself has been an education to me. I did not map it all 
out in advance. I blundered into it, and I must say with some 
satisfaction that I have blundered to very good advantage. 

Valuable Lessons Learned 

I do not regret any of the blunders I have made, but these 
twenty-two years have been years of growth in method, years in 
which I have learned valuable lessons in the distribution of 
wealth. I do not want to live them over. I do not want my 
money back to give it away again. 

But I have learned a great deal which I did not know when I 
began. I am something more of a philanthropist now than I was 
when I began. I have a better understanding of the use of 
these gifts and a better idea of the use which they will be to the 
world. 

My friends used to talk to me about the good I was doing, and 
I laughed at them and said: 

"I am just an economical old man investing my money in the 
most careful way I know how." 

But I have begun to think my friends were right. I see in the 
more than forty colleges which I have helped a wider range of 
usefulness than I ever dreamed of when I began this work. 

Recalls the Pioneer Days 

I did not begin with a ready made plan. In 1851 my wife and 
I took our first trip to the west. Our destination was Janesville. 
Wis., and we passed through Elgin, which was then the terminus 
of the railroad. From there we took wagons to our destination, 
passing through Beloit. We passed through a good deal of mud, 
and it was rich mud. When we reached Beloit we had to ford the 
Rock River, and our horses swam the river. We had to stand up 
on the seats to keep our feet from getting wet. We stopped at a 
little tavern to rest. Beloit was a small hamlet. 

When we started on a big burly fellow climbed into the wagon 



APPENDIX 2 

for a ride. I noticed a brick building going up and asked him 

what was being done. He answered: 

"There are some Yankee cranks building a college." 

That interested me, for I was just out of New England and a 

thorough Yankee and proud of it. If anybody calls me a Yankee, 

I take off my hat and bow. If he calls me an "old Puritan" I 

make three bows. 

Records an Early Vow 

On the way to Janesville that man cursed everything that was 
good. I tried to argue with him and to stand up for a Christian 
education the best I knew how. When we got to Janesville I 
shook my fist in his face and I said: "Young man, I am going 
west, and I am going to get rich, and when I do I am coming back 
to lift up these colleges that Yankee cranks are founding." 

I prospered in the new country to which I had come. I gave up 
for a time my vision of being a philanthropist, and devoted myself 
to getting money. Other men trusted me with their investments 
and the money I invested for them proved profitable for them and 
for me. For a great many years my money was tied up in active 
business propositions. I lived modestly, but well. I drove hard 
bargains, but I never drove a dishonest one. 

On the approach of my seventieth birthday my eye was not 
dim nor my natural force abated. I retired from active business 
life. I placed my investments where they would require little of 
my time or attention; all the time I remembered my talk with the 
man about the little college in Beloit. 

A former resident of Beloit was a relative of my wife and I 
started there. I went to Beloit College on commencement day. 
Not many people knew me. I sat on the platform. I never had 
been regarded as a speechmaker, but the time came for me to 
make a speech. I stood up and said: "I will give Beloit college 
$100,000 if the college will raise $100,000 additional." That was 
the beginning of my oratory and it was a success. 



297 



LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS 

Raising Dollar for Dollar 

Then I found out this : That colleges could raise more than dol- 
lar for dollar, and that it was to their advantage to do it. Gener- 
ally they could raise three dollars for one, among their friends. 
People often asked me: "Why do you not give your money out- 
right? Why do you compel colleges to raise money to meet your 
pledges?" My answer is, "Because I have tried that way and 
it works well." 

In the first place it tests the college and shows whether it has 
any natural constituency of its own. In the next place it rallies 
its friends to the support of the college, and it makes for it new 
friends. In the third place, it keeps my gift from stopping some 
other man's gift, and compels the other gift to be made. Finally, 
it multiplies my gift by two, or three, or four. 

It has made my $5,000,000 yield $15,000,000. It makes three 
blades of grass grow where there had been one. I have not 
always insisted on the same proportion. Sometimes I have 
accepted dollar for dollar. 

Other times I have taken two to one, and still more frequently 
three to one. Repeatedly I have offered $50,000 to a college if 
it would raise $150,000 additional. Sometimes they have thought 
me a little hard-hearted in the conditions I made, but I thought I 
was doing right. I compelled them to make friends, and com- 
pelled their friends to prove their friendship. 

Eye on College Finances 

I did more than this. I kept a financial report of practically 
every college in the country. I studied these reports. I knew 
which colleges had been careless in the investment of their endow- 
ments. I knew which colleges had borrowed from one fund to 
help out another. When they came to me for help I told them 
they had been dishonest. 

I talked to them in plain language. They did not like it very 
well, but they went home and adopted a new system of book- 

298 



APPENDIX 2 

keeping. They separated their current expense money from their 
endowment money. They employed competent auditors to go 
over their accounts. They used new balance sheets, with certifi- 
cates sworn to by good public accountants. 

I compelled them to become business-like. I believe this thing 
itself was a larger gift to the colleges than all the money I could 
give them. The day of hit or miss bookkeeping in college offices 
has gone by, and I was able to push it a little as it was going. 

Naturally they thought me hard-hearted in all this. Some- 
times they said that I was not very ladylike in my language to 
them. If a board of trustees took endowment to pay current 
expenses, and then sent a committee to me to ask me to make it 
up, and I told them they ought to be in jail, they thought I was 
not very ladylike. 

Show Clean Balance Sheets 

But they hustled around among their friends and got money to 
replace what had been taken, and started in a new method. And 
a year or two later they would come to me and show a clean 
balance sheet; then I would say: 

" Gentlemen, you have done very well. Your funds are in good 
condition, but you need more. I will give $50,000 if you will raise 
$150,000 more." 

Then they would go out and raise it, and when they had got it 
raised they would go out and invest it. 

The average board of trustees is a safer, more business-like body 
than it was twenty-two years ago. The average college treasurer 
is a much more business-like man. I know this, for I have 
watched it, and in part I have caused it. I simply made up my 
mind not to give my money where it was going to be frittered 
away. And this policy bore fruit. 

I have given some money to educational work through the 
American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. I 
began this through the interest of my wife in this work. The 
first guests we had in our home were some Chinese from a Sunday- 



LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS 

school class in which she was interested. The first foreign mis- 
sion gift that we made was to Dr. Tracy of Turkey for his college. 

Helping Foreign Missions 

I have not felt called upon to give money to the general work 
of foreign missions. My field has been the field of education. 
But when the American board undertook to raise $2,000,000 for 
endowment of its foreign missionary colleges, I believed that to 
be directly in line with my work. I believed that whatever 
money I gave there would be well invested and rightly used. 
One of the things I am going to do now is to give $100,000 to 
this cause. It is a gift that I am proud to make. 

I have given $1,000,000 to the city of Chicago. That is where 
I made my money. But Chicago does not need money for small 
colleges, so I have given money to the City Missionary Society, 
the Young Men's Christian Association, and Chicago Theological 
Seminary, to the Presbyterian Hospital, and other agencies which 
I believe to be most nearly in line with the work I have tried to do. 

The man who is to give away money must choose the field in 
which he is to do it. If I had had a thousand times as much as I 
had I could not have answered all the requests that have been 
made of me. 

Pays Tribute to Mbs. Pearsons 

I have no criticism to pass on any one else who chooses a differ- 
ent method, but I believed that my own money would go farthest 
and do most good if I invested it in the young manhood and 
young womanhood of our country. So my wife and I chose 
twenty- two years ago to invest in Christian education. 

For eighteen years I had her companionship and constant help. 
In the last four years I have continued this work which she and 
I so long enjoyed together. The choice we made was a beautiful 
one, and a happy one. I cannot tell how much joy there has been 
in it for us both. I can only be glad that we were led to do as 
we have done. 

300 



APPENDIX 2 

I have not said much about the spirit which has been behind 
these gifts. I am a plain business man, and I talk in plain lan- 
guage, the language of commerce and of common sense. But I 
want to say more earnestly than I have ever said before that I 
believe I have been guided in this work. I do not think it has 
all been of my own choosing or planning. 

Never Has Been a Hypocrite 

Whatever people have said of me they have never called me an 
old hypocrite. I do not care to say more than I am now saying 
about the spirit which has guided these gifts, but I should be false 
to myself if I said less than this. 

I have never been a sectarian. For good reasons considerable 
of my work has been done for Congregational institutions, and 
next to that Presbyterians claim my interest. But I have done 
this in no sectarian spirit. Among the colleges that I have 
helped are Methodist, Baptist, Quaker, and nonsectarian insti- 
tutions. 

But I have emphasized the Christian idea, because I believe 
that education is of little value without character, and may be 
even harmful. I have tried to make my gifts a contribution to 
the work of God and the welfare of mankind. 

I got some idea of the value of Christian education in my early 
association with Mary Lyon, the founder of Mount Holyoke Col- 
lege. That noble woman used to come to my house and when I 
began the practise of medicine I was near her college. I have 
been able to befriend it since. I gave it a building and some 
money for endowment. I do not believe there is in New England, 
or in all the country for that matter, a better college for women 
than Mount Holyoke. It stands in my mind for an ideal of Chris- 
tian womanhood, and I believe in Christian womanhood, and 
Christian manhood. 

Some of my gifts seem to me almost to have been taken out of 
the sphere of my own planning. There is one of them that I 
think of which seems to me to have been a direct inspiration. I 
refer to the $50,000 which I gave to establish the water works for 

301 



LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS 

Berea college. That was the most beautiful gift I ever made. 
When I think of the way that came about and all the good that 
has been done I consider that gift an inspiration. 

I have the greatest joy in my colleges. They are my children. 
They are my only children. They are good children and growing 
children. No father was ever more proud of his family than I 
am of these colleges. I have nurtured them, loved them, scolded 
them sometimes, but I have watched them with more affection 
than they have always realized. And they are my joy and crown. 
I have no more money for them, but all the affection which I ever 
had for them I still treasure. 

I like to think of them, from old Vermont, where I was born, 
across the continent to Pacific University in Oregon, and all the 
way from Ashland, in the pine woods of Wisconsin, to Rollins in 
Florida, and to Pomona in southern California. Their names are 
precious to me, and their prosperity brings me great joy. 

Praise for the Newspapers 

I wish I could send greeting on this birthday to all my friends 
near and far. I should like to answer all the letters and send mes- 
sages to all the institutions which send their greetings to me. I 
cannot send individual messages to all of them, but I send a hearty 
word of appreciation through the medium of the public press. 

I want to say a word to the newspapers. They have always 
been my friends. They have advertised my efforts, and have 
encouraged colleges to meet my conditions. In some cases the 
effort would entirely have failed if it had not been for the hearty 
support of the press. I have not sought newspaper notoriety. 
I have been careless what they have said about my methods, but 
I want at this time to express my appreciation of the courtesy 
and helpfulness of the press throughout the country. 

I hope that I shall live to be 100. The conditions of my general 
health are such that that does not seem impossible. But I cannot 
live nine more years as strenuous as the last have been. I have 
lived in the joy of achievement, and with the strain of sympathy 
with the institutions I have been helping. 

302 



APPENDIX 2 



Looks Back with Thankfulness 

I have taken upon myself more of their burden than they could 
realize. I cannot do this longer. What time may remain for me 
must be spent in quiet. What money I have is fully provided for. 
I look back with great thankfulness over the ninety-one years of 
my life, and especially over the last twenty-two. 

If these years seem remarkable to my friends, they seem noth- 
ing less than wonderful to me. 

I send this final message to the colleges I have helped. Guard 
faithfully your endowment funds. Use careful business methods 
in placing the funds of the college. But even more carefully 
guard your students. Keep them from harm, for the hope of the 
country is in the young people you are training. 

I should like to give a word of advice also to prosperous men. 
Do not put off your benefactions till you are too old to enjoy 
them. Do not leave your money to people to quarrel over. Do 
not shorten your lives by extravagances. Find some good thing 
which ought to be done, and begin to do it. 

Take that field of philanthropy and make it your own. Put in 
your work in such a way that you come to be known as a friend 
of the cause to which you give your efforts. And the experiences 
that that course will bring will cause you greater joy than any 
other in life. 



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APPENDIX 3 

NINETY-FIRST BIRTHDAY: GREETING OF THE CHI- 
CAGO CONGREGATIONAL CLUB TO DOCTOR 
D. K. PEARSONS APRIL 14, 1911 

Written by Rev. Dr. Simeon Gilbert 

April 14 has come to be a cherished red-letter day with us, as 
well as with you; and we, the members of our Congregational 
Club, are all of one mind and one heart tonight as we turn to 
think of you. And, as you must already know, our thought is 
full of love, of admiration, of gratefulness as we offer heartfelt 
congratulation on this your Ninety-first birthday. 

Ninety-one years; and what years they have been — these years 
of discoveries and inventions, modern miracles at which all men 
wonder, necessitating perpetual crises, evolutions and revolutions 
so many of them taking place within the measure of your own life! 
No doubt you have reached the period where there is no resent- 
ment at having Shakespeare's word applied to you : 

"Oh, sir, you are old, 
Nature in you stands at the very verge of her confine." 

Even sunsets, it is said you know, "do take a sober coloring 
from an eye that hath kept watch o'er man's mortality"; but 
what we are thinking is of the gracious quality, the meaning, the 
culminating issues and beneficent outcome of this long life that 
has been given you. And so we unite in thanking God for what 
during all these years, he has been doing for you, and has been 
doing through you, for our country and the world. Surely it 
were not possible, now, to think of it all, the acute timeliness, the 
largeness, the varied scope and self-perpetuating beneficence of 
all this sagacious planning and doing, and doing and giving on 
behalf of these near-fifty Colleges which you so fondly love to 

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APPENDIX 3 

speak of as "my children," without having wakened in one's 
mind a feeling akin to awe, as if somehow taken up into partner- 
ship with God himself. 

It was a beginning of good fortune for you — as some of us also 
have fine reasons for believing — that you were given birth and 
early training up in Vermont. Fortunate, too, perhaps, that 
you were not allowed to stay there too long! Then how often, 
oh, how often you must have blessed the good Hand of Provi- 
dence which led you, while in your early prime, down the valley 
of the Connecticut, loveliest of river valleys, in sight of old 
Mount Tom and the classic Mount Holyoke, and opened the way 
for you to the gracious home of Deacon Chapin, and, quite as 
important, to that of Miss Chapin — foreordained to be evermore 
the good genius of your own home, the chiefest boon in your life. 
Moreover, of like far-reaching good fortune was it that there, as 
you drove your Doctor's gig up and down among those pictur- 
esque hills and valleys you came to know also, that inspired woman, 
one of the most prophetic spirits of her time, Mary Lyon; and that 
just at the time when she was not only founding and making 
Mt. Holyoke Seminary, but was beginning to make that great 
new epoch in modern educational history for women, the world 
over. And we suspect that nobody ever learned a greater lesson 
from that inspired educator and college builder, than did the 
young doctor in his gig, as he began dreaming for himself the 
new scheme of life; and ever after was not disobedient to the far- 
vision. Of course little enough, at the time, did he know what 
it all meant. At any rate, he had been confronted by his "Burn- 
ing Bush" in the desert, and began to heed the imperativeness of 
the Inner Voice. 

And now, as from this happy point of view you look back over 
the long way in which you have been so graciously led, how timely 
it must seem to you, the time when you were led to come west, to 
come here to Chicago. Not a day too soon, nor a day too late. 
It was exactly the time for you, in your way, to make here your 
fortune, as we call it. 

Then, when some twenty-five years later, now some twenty- 

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LIFE OF DR. D. K PEARSONS 

two years ago, the same gracious Hand struck the hour, the 
moment for the grand, new task to be taken up, there was, as we 
love to recall, no paltering, no divided counsels. And today, as 
we glance over this last and most unique period in your life, the 
great educational and college-building era of it, there seems to 
us nothing more strikingly worthy of note, than its supreme 
timeliness. 

It was a just remark of Professor Dexter of Yale, that if the 
founding of Harvard College had been delayed twenty-five years, 
the whole course of New England history would have been differ- 
ent. No doubt of it. But here we have in mind not one college, 
but fifty such cobperant factors in American life; colleges which 
had indeed been founded some years before, but which, by reason 
of the scantiness and extreme uncertainty of their provisions and 
equipment, were utterly inadequate to cope with the new educa- 
tional conditions and necessities. 

Think of it, how tremendously different the case of the higher 
educational problem in our country would have been today, had 
not somebody in the all-seeing Providence of God been raised up 
to take the timely initiative, and with contagious consecration 
and courage set going this majestic educational movement. The 
very stones would have cried out. 

Let those of us realize it who can, the sinister drift in American 
character and life had the man chosen of God for this new-century 
educational movement been disobedient to the heavenly vision; 
had he, instead of consecrating himself to his mission, been only 
half-hearted about it and in some paltering evasion trifled with it 
and sought to bargain with his conscience in putting off the mat- 
ter, and putting it over to the "dead hand" of some last will and 
testament, which might or might not have been made good. 

What if all these half-a-hundred Colleges, east and west, north 
and south, Beloit and Berea, Carleton and Colorado, and the 
rest, and, especially, our own Chicago Theological Seminary — 
in its way the sacred capital of them all — had been in shiftless 
abandonment left in their poverty and utter inadequacy of endow- 
ment and support to drag along at a poor dying rate their losing 

806 



APPENDIX 3 

competition with the non-Christian schools; where would we be 
today? 

Nor in this connection should mention be omitted either of 
certain beginnings of large educational endowments through the 
American Board in mission lands, or of gifts made to vital inter- 
ests in our own City, including besides the Chicago Theological 
Seminary, the McCormick Theological Seminary, the Presby- 
terian Hospital, the Art Institute, the Young Men's Christian 
Association, and specially the Chicago City Missionary Society; 
gifts amounting to over a million dollars, all in addition to the 
four or five millions given elsewhere — all destined to have effects 
of incalculable importance, "ages on ages telling." 

Never, never will men of the illumined apprehension fail to 
appreciate the "thrice and four times" valued gifts thus early 
made, when most they were needed. 

And then, one other thing; it must be a satisfaction to you, 
Dr. Pearsons, as it is to us, to think of the number of other more 
or less illustrious educational givers, some of them with indeed 
many times more millions than you have been entrusted with — 
who have graciously acknowledged their indebtedness to you, 
your precedent., example and way of making your gifts; the con- 
ditioning way, which has won so many thousands of others into 
the same widening and inspiring fellowship of educationalists and 
timely helpers. 

There is a Scripture, you know, which speaks of a time when 
one should chase a thousand, and two put ten thousand to flight. 
Unspeakable is the felicity of our own time when one individual, 
starting in the nick of time, may be worth a thousand men; when 
one may touch a button and set enormous systems of activity into 
correlated motion and power; when one may pitch the tune and 
thousands of voices shall roll on the glorious symphony. 

Let Homer sing as he may in deathless verse of proud Troy 
and the heroes and battles that surge about its falling walls; let 
the Latin Poet more prophetic in his spirit sing of "arms and the 
man" and celebrate the far-visioned epic of the kingdom that 
was to be, the "kingdom bounded by the ocean, the fame of it by 

307 



LIFE OF DR. D. K. PEARSONS 

the stars." But this new educational epoch, which is so directly 
to help on "the happy history," not for our America only but for 
all the world, this will call for a new kind of epic for its fitting 
celebration, should some one ever appear competent for its 
portrayal. 

Meanwhile, our dear Dr. Pearsons, grateful as we are to him 
who is the giver of every perfect gift and of all good giving, be 
assured that we all join with profound affection in thanking you 
for all that you these so many years have been doing, and in 
fervent prayer and hope that this later portion of your life may be 
enriched with the divinest comforting and good cheer, and that 
the continuing history and ever-increasing output of these fifty 
Colleges and of this our Seminary may more and more illuminate 
the wisdom of what has been so opportunely and worthily done 
for them. 

In that mystical Scripture of one of the Prophets, reference, you 
remember, is made to a "window opened in heaven"; exactly 
what is meant by it we may not know, but in view of the ineffable 
satisfactions and strange gladness of spirit in this Christly busi- 
ness for others, which you — you and she who was, and still is, 
your wisest and closest partner in it all — have experienced, do we 
not seem to see at least a glimpse of its meaning? A window 
opened in Heaven. 

( Simeon Gilbert. 

Signed — Committee op the Club I Ozora S. Davis. 

( Thomas C. McMillan. 



308 



DEC 23 Wit 



One copy del. to Cat. Div. 
DEC 23 19? f 



